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About Jesus - Steve Sweetman An
Elderly Man
Table
of Contents The
Character Qualities of a True Christian The
Biblical text used and quoted for this commentary is the Christian Standard
Bible (CSB) as seen in the authorization statement below. Scripture
quotations marked CSB have been taken from the Christian Standard Bible®,
Copyright © 2017 by Holman Bible Publishers. Used by permission. Christian
Standard Bible® and CSB® are federally registered trademarks of Holman
Bible Publishers. I
dedicate this book to Trevor Hoskins, my good friend, pastor, and brother in
the Lord. It was Trevor, back in
2018, who suggested I lead a Bible-study class on the apostle John's first
letter, which I did in the spring of 2019.
This book is the result of my preparation for that class.
Trevor
has been instrumental and the driving force, along with the Lord Jesus, in
establishing Harvest Ministries, in I
also dedicate this book to my long-time friend and brother in the Lord, I
thank the Lord that He has brought both Trevor and Timothy into my life.
I
was raised in 1950's and 1960's style Evangelical Christianity with its
specific approach to Biblical theology and practice.
Even though I was raised on Scripture, I have been a serious student
of the Bible since 1970 and have gained my Biblical knowledge from multiple
sources. There would be far too
many of these sources to name here. However,
as I have written this version of my commentary on 1 John, here in 2019,
there are a few sources of Biblical instruction and commentary that I would
especially like to acknowledge as having been of assistance to me as I have
restudied this portion of the Bible. I
would highly recommend Dr. Bob Utley and his online commentaries on both the
Old Testament and the New Testament. Both
his written and audio commentaries can be found at:
http://www.freebiblecommentary.org/ I
would recommend F. F. Bruce's commentary on 1 John, published in e-book form
by Kingsley Books Inc., in 2018. The
paperback version was published by F H Revell in 1971.
Bruce is considered to be one of the twentieth century's most
important Evangelical Bible scholars. I
also recommend the Zondervan Exegetical Commentary on 1, 2, and 3 John,
written in 2014 by Karen H. Jobes and published by Zondervan.
I
acknowledge John Stott's commentary entitled "The Letters of
John," book 19, of the Tyndale New Testament Commentary series
published by IVP Academic. The
paperback version was reprinted in 2009 while the e-book edition was
published in 2014. Another
book that helped contribute to my study in this commentary was "The
Atonement," written by Leon Morris.
The book was published by IVP Academic in 1984.
The e-book was published by IVP Academic in 2012. John
Walton's "The Lost World of the Torah" provided much information
that was helpful in compiling this commentary.
It was published in both book and e-book form by IVP Academic in
2019. I recommend all of his
books. Finally,
I thank It
was January, 2019, when I first put my fingers to the keyboard and began to
write this particular version of my commentary on the apostle John's first
letter. I did so in preparation
for a Bible study that I led in the spring of 2019.
What you will read in the following pages is a product of my study.
I
admit that there are more scholarly and all-encompassing commentaries than
mine, and that is fine. My hope
is to write a commentary that everyone - young, old, educated or uneducated,
can easily understand and benefit from.
John's instructions are just as important today as they were when he
first penned them, roughly nineteen hundred years ago. I
also admit, that being a student of the Bible, I am always learning what the
Bible has to say to us. I,
therefore, expect to have a better understanding of Biblical truth next year
than I have this year. This is
always a problem with a Bible teacher. He
may teach something today, but as time goes on, he may have a clearer
understanding of the subject matter. He
might even change his mind on what he once taught, and there is no problem
with that. We all must admit to
our errors and move on. Where
the problem lies in writing a commentary is that, at a future date, I will
surely have more accurate understanding of what you will read in this book.
The best I can do, or, the best any Bible teacher can do, is to teach
what he presently knows, and that I will do in the following pages.
The best, then, that you can do, is for you to consider what I say as
you study the Bible for yourself.
When
John penned this letter he was a very old man.
Allow me to suggest, especially that I might be considered an old man
these days, that what elderly people pass along to the next generation
before they die is important for the good health of the next generation.
By the time one is old, many things once considered important in life
become irrelevant. What remains
are the vital issues of life that are worth paying close attention to.
This made the content of John's letter especially appropriate for his
readers. It is what makes what
he wrote vitally important to us, who today, call ourselves followers of
Jesus.
I
do not consider myself to be in the same theological league as the apostle
Paul, but I do repeat what he told Timothy, his son in the Lord.
2 Timothy 2:7 says this:
"Consider
what I say, and may the Lord give you understanding in all things." So,
consider what you read in this book as you continue to study Biblical truth
for yourself. I hope and pray
that what you will discover in this commentary will be both instructive and
inspiring. One
important rule of Biblical interpretation, or hermeneutics, as it is called,
is that we must understand to whom the author of any portion of Scripture
was directing his thoughts. Once
knowing that, we must, then, attempt to understand his thoughts as he wanted
them to be understood. Far too
often we approach Bible study with a twenty-first-century mindset.
We define words and concepts based on our present cultural usages and
definitions. This more often
than not misrepresents the Biblical author's intent, and thus, we
misunderstand, and then misapply, what the text says.
The
Bible was written over a span of several centuries in languages and cultural
settings few of us know anything about today.
For this reason, some knowledge of the relevant ancient languages and
the cultures in which they were spoken or written will assist us immensely
in our attempt to understand Biblical truth.
Once
we feel somewhat confident, if we can ever be fully confident, in knowing
what the author was telling his readers, we can then see how it applies to
us today. It is for this reason
that I have chosen the format of this commentary.
For
the text to be studied, I will first quote it from the Christian Standard
Bible (CSB). I will then comment
on the text. After that, I will
provide a short review of the text and then suggest some present-day
applications from what was learned from the text.
If
you read this book from beginning to end you will note at times I am
somewhat repetitious. I repeat
myself because, when it comes to reading commentaries, we tend to look up a
particular verse to read what the commentator has written about that verse.
We do not always read the entire commentary from cover to cover.
That forces the commentator to be repetitious since certain words and
concepts appear in many verses throughout any portion of Scripture.
If I leave a comment out because I have commented on it elsewhere,
you will fail to understand the full meaning of the verse you are
referencing.
Before
we even get started looking at the text of 1 John, I will define certain
words and some theological concepts that will arise during our study.
These definitions, hopefully, will help you better understand what
the text is saying when the words and concepts arise in John's letter.
The
New Testament was originally written in common, every-day, street-level,
first-century, Greek. That Greek
differed from what has been commonly called "Classical Greek."
At times, therefore, I will make reference to certain Greek words and
their meanings to help explain a text. I
will also make reference to certain Greek verb tenses in an easy to
understand way. I will define a
few, but not all, Greek verb tenses, so that, when we encounter them, you
will have already been briefed on them.
Both the meaning of words and verb tenses as they were used in the
first-century, Greco-Roman, world help us understand the Biblical text.
I will attempt to simplify such issues that some might call
complicated. Here
is an example of what I am saying. John
3:16 is one of the most well-known verses in the Bible.
In this verse, John said that God loved the world so much that He
sent His Son into the world. Whosoever
would believe in Jesus, God's Son, would not perish but have everlasting
life. Here is John 3:16 from the
CSB version of the Bible. It
reads: "For
God loved the world in this way: He gave his one and only Son, so that
everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life." If
you understand this verse to be referring to "everyone" who
mentally acknowledges the reality of Jesus' existence, and especially His
divinity, which is the understanding based on today's cultural definition of
the word "believe," then you will have misunderstood John 3:16.
The
Greek verb translated as "believes" is "pisteuo."
This word has little to do with mentally acknowledging the reality of
Jesus' existence. This Greek
word means "to trust." It
does not mean "to give mental assent to" something.
Because this Greek verb is a present active participle, and don't let
that scare you, John was saying this: everyone
who is a present-day trusting-one in Jesus will not perish but have
everlasting life. The verb tense
emphasizes one who is a trusting-one and not one who simply trusts from time
to time. It emphasizes that one,
by his very nature, is a trusting one.
You may have to think that through for a while.
One becomes a trusting-one because he has become a new creation in
Christ, as seen in 2 Corinthians 5:17.
He trusts his life with Jesus because, by virtue of his brand new
nature in Christ, he is a trusting-one.
What
I have just said is vital to the gospel message we are to proclaim to the
culture around us. The emphasis
on trusting one’s life with Jesus, means more than acknowledging His
existence. Mental assent or
acknowledgement of the Biblical Jesus saves no one.
Even the demons acknowledge Jesus' existence, and they tremble,
according to James 2:19. Trusting
your life with Jesus is what saves a person.
Being a present-day truster-in-Jesus, if I can say it that way, is
what saves you. That is what
John 3:16 is all about. Moving
onto a new point, Daniel 12:4 says that as this age draws closer to an end,
"knowledge will increase." No
one will argue over the truth of that statement.
Knowledge is increasing exponentially, and that includes historical,
cultural, and linguistic knowledge of the days in which the Bible was
originally penned. All this new
insight helps us to understand the Biblical text today better than we
understood it years ago. It is
for this reason that you may find some variations between older versions of
the Bible and newer versions of the Bible.
Hundreds more Biblical manuscripts have been discovered since the
King James Bible came into existence in 1611.
These additional manuscripts provide us with a more accurate
rendering of certain Bible verses. I
mention this now because this issue will come to the forefront in our study
of 1 John and will have to be addressed.
Studying
and interpreting the Bible, as I will do in the following pages, is a matter
of what is called "hermeneutics."
That word seems to scare people these days, but it shouldn't.
Hermeneutics as applied to Biblical study is an attempt to understand
the Bible as its original authors meant it to be understood.
That is not an easy task. Trying
to get into the mind of a man who wrote hundreds of years ago, in a culture
and language unfamiliar to most of us, is a difficult task, but it is a task
I am attempting to undertake in the following pages.
Before
we study the text of 1 John it will be helpful to have certain words defined
that appear in John's letter. Without
a basic understanding of these words, you will not completely grasp what
John wanted his readers, and us as well, to know.
These words are in no particular order.
Christ
The
word "Christ" is translated into English from the Greek word
"christos." Christos
means "anointed one." This
word was not a religious word in the first-century, Greco-Roman, world where
John lived. If someone was
installed into a specific role in the community, let us say as a judge, he
could have been considered a "christos."
When
thinking of Jesus as being the Christos, or the Anointed One, He was so
designated by God His Father to fulfill His Messianic role and mission while
He was on earth. The
Old Testament Hebrew word "meshiyach" is translated into English
as "Messiah." This
Hebrew word is synonymous with the Greek word "christos" and our
English word "Christ." In
John 1:32 we note that Jesus was publically declared to be the Christ, or
the Messiah, when John the Baptist baptized Him in water.
This public declaration was made by the voice from heaven when the
Holy Spirit came upon Jesus. In
our study of 1 John our first encounter with the word "Christ" as
it applies to Jesus is in 1 John 1:3. Right
at the beginning of his letter John addressed this most important issue, as
it pertained to Jesus. Anoint The
Greek word "eleipho" is translated into English as
"anoint." This Greek
word was not a religious word in the first-century, Greco-Roman, world.
It was a general-usage term that meant "to pour," as one
pours oil on the head of someone to install him into a particular office or
place of responsibility.
As
this word pertains to Jesus, He had the Holy Spirit poured on Him on the
occasion when He was baptized in water, as seen in John 1:32.
He was, therefore, anointed with the Holy Spirit to perform His
Messianic duties on earth. This
anointing was confirmed when the voice from heaven declared Him to be the
Son of God whom God, His Father, loved.
See Luke 3:22. When
a believer receives the Holy Spirit into his life, it is said that he has
been anointed with the Holy Spirit. This
is seen in Acts 2:2 when one hundred and twenty believers received the Holy
Spirit into their lives by means of the Spirit being poured out on them from
heaven. Peter confirmed this in
Acts 2:33. As
it pertains to the reception of the Spirit into one's being, the term
"poured out" is used throughout the book of Acts.
The process of salvation, thus, must include receiving the Holy
Spirit into one's life. Without
this anointing, there is no salvation. The
apostle Paul made that perfectly clear in Romans 8:9.
We will come back to this verse many times in this commentary.
Our
English word "anoint" does not appear in John's first letter.
However, the word "anointing" does appear in 1 John 2:20
and 27. We will address this
issue when we see what John said about the relationship between the believer
and the Holy Spirit.
Fellowship The
word "fellowship" is translated from the Greek word
"koinonia." Koinonia
means "to hold something in common with others."
In terms of being a Christian, Christians hold many things in common
with each other, but the most important thing they hold in common is the
Holy Spirit. It is the Holy
Spirit living within the individual believer that unites the believers in
Christian fellowship. The
word "fellowship," as seen in the New Testament, is the sharing of
one's life with those to whom Jesus, by His Spirit, has placed him alongside
in the Body of Christ, otherwise known as the church.
New Testament fellowship is more than the getting together for a
friendly conversation with others, which is commonly called fellowship
today. You
will read the word "fellowship" three times in the CSB version of
John's first letter. It first
appears in 1 John 1:3 and is vital in understanding the relationship that
the Christian has with God and his brothers and sisters in Christ.
Wrath
Wrath,
as it applies to God is something the modern-day Christian is thinking less
about, but it is one very important Biblical subject.
Wrath is a very strong, and I might add, explosive, anger.
God's wrath cannot be compared with man's wrath.
Man's wrath is mixed with a multitude of sinful emotions, like
retaliation and hatred. This is
not so with God. His wrath is
based on a pure and divine revulsion of sin.
It is clear from the New Testament as well as from the Old Testament
that God still does, and will, exhibit wrath against sinfulness.
God's justice demands that His wrath be so exhibited.
If God does not demonstrate wrath, He goes against all of who He is.
God is just, and not demonstrating His sense of justice defies who He
is. Although the word
"wrath" does not appear in 1 John, we will need to address the
wrath of God when we study 1 John 2:1 and 2, and, 1 John 4:10.
Propitiation
The
word "propitiation" that is found in the KJV, NKJV, ESV, NASB, is
translated from the Greek word "hilasmos." This
Greek word is also found in the Septuagint, the Greek version of the Old
Testament. Other translations of
the New Testament translate this Greek word differently, and they do so,
partly based on the translator's theology.
The CSB version of the New Testament that I am using for this study
translates "hilasmos" into the words "atoning
sacrifice." Some other
versions of the New Testament translate "hilasmos" as expiation. In
simple terms, and, as it applies to God's dealing with humans,
"propitiation," or its Greek equivalent "hilasmos,"
means "the removal of God's wrath from the life of the believer."
Propitiation differs from expiation in that propitiation removes
God's wrath from a person while expiation removes the sin from the heavenly
record, or, from the mind of God.
The
Greek word "hilasmos" that is translated as "atoning
sacrifice" in the CSB version of the New Testament was a religious word
in the first-century, Greco-Roman, religiously pagan world.
In pagan religions of the day, a pagan would have felt the need to do
something, which to us would be a bribe, to remove the wrath of the gods
from his life. Whatever he did
to remove the wrath of the gods was considered to be a propitiation, or as
the CSB puts it, an atoning sacrifice. In
terms of being a Christian, Jesus' sacrifice on the cross removed Gods wrath
from the lives of those who would subsequently give their lives to Him.
In theological terms, Jesus' death on the cross was called a
"hilasmos,” or, "atoning sacrifice," as the CSB reads.
It was a propitiation. Unlike
with pagan religions, the Christian believer does nothing to remove God's
wrath from his life. Jesus has
done all that is necessary in this respect.
There is nothing else that can be done.
Jesus said it best. While
on the cross He said: "it is finished" (John 19:30).
All that was necessary to remove God's wrath was completely finished
when Jesus gave his human life on the cross.
I
will address propitiation when I comment on 1 John 2:2.
Advocate The
word "advocate" is translated from the Greek word
"parakletos." This
Greek word means "to be called alongside of another."
When a woman marries a man, she is called alongside of her husband.
In connection with Jesus, He, after His ascension, was called
alongside of God His Father for a number of reasons.
The point to be made here is that one is called alongside another for
a specific reason or reasons, and Jesus is no exception to this.
Christians
are also called alongside of other Christians in the Body of Christ for
support and ministry, as can be seen in 1 Corinthians 12 through 14. We
will address this word when we come to 1 John 2:1. Sin The
word "sin" is translated from the Greek word "hamartia."
This word means "to miss the mark."
Although there are a few definitions of sin that can be found in the
Bible, due to the meaning of "hamartia" as being missing the mark,
the fundamental definition of sin is "to miss the mark for all that God
requires us to do and to be." The
apostle Paul expressed this meaning of sin in Romans 3:23 when he said that
all of us have sinned by falling short of the glory of God.
Falling short of God's glory in our lives means "to miss the
mark" of His glory. We
will encounter the word "sin" in 1 John 1:7 when John addressed
that issue. Righteousness The
Greek word "dikalos" is translated as "righteous" in the
New Testament. Evangelical
Christians often understand righteousness in terms of good moral or ethical
behaviour, and that it is. When
thinking of righteousness in those terms, we consider one who is righteous
as one who lives a good, moral, or ethical lifestyle.
There is, however, a more fundamental understanding of righteousness
than that. The
most fundamental definition of righteousness is "to be in right
standing." As righteousness
pertains to a Christian's relationship with God, one is righteous when God
declares him to be in right standing with Himself.
Righteousness, then, is a status that is given to, or conferred on,
the believer from God. From this
status, the secondary meaning of righteousness is better understood.
One, who has been declared righteous by God, is expected, with the
empowering assistance of the Holy Spirit, to live as one who has the status
of being righteous. More
often than not, Evangelical Christians have put the cart before the horse,
so to speak, on this matter. We
have stressed righteousness as one being morally and ethically good.
This puts the emphasis on doing works that make us morally and
ethically good. It makes one
feel that he must be doing good works to maintain one's right standing
before God. It de-emphasizes, or
even neglects, the presupposition that the one who is expected to live
righteously has first been declared righteous.
He has been declared righteous by nothing he has done.
This declaration is a free gift based on God's grace and trusting the
One who has given the gift.
The
Biblical fact of the matter is that there is no person who is both morally
and ethically right in all of his ways. Jeremiah
17:9 states that the heart of man is so sinful that man has no comprehension
of how sinful his heart and life really is.
God, therefore, has been gracious to us in that He declares the
believer to be righteous, even as He Himself is righteous.
In other words, God declares the believer to be something he is not.
This declaration is based on the fact that Jesus both received the
punishment for our unrighteousness and He lived the perfect righteous life
on our behalf. This
righteousness is conferred on the person when he or she repents of his
sinfulness, hands his life over to Jesus in faith or trust, and, receives
the Holy Spirit into his life. I
will comment on righteousness when the subject comes up in 1 John 1:9. Forgive
The
Greek word "aphiemi" is translated into English as
"forgive." This was
not a religious word in the first-century, Greco-Roman, world.
It was an accounting term used in every-day business practices.
The word meant to delete a financial debt that one owed to another.
In
Christian terms, forgiveness is the process by which the debt of our sin is
deleted from God's records. It
is important to know that all sin, no matter who is the victim of the sin,
is considered to be a sin against God. Our
sin incurs a debt that we owe to God. It
is for this reason that the CSB, the KJV, and other versions of the Bible,
expresses sin as a debt in the Lord's Prayer.
See Matthew 6:12. "Forgive
our debts" in the Lord's Prayer means "forgive our sins."
It means to delete all sins associated with us from the heavenly
record. We
will have to address the topic of forgiveness when we study 1 John 1:9. Cleanse
The
Greek word "katharizo" is translated into English as
"cleanse" in the New Testament.
This word was not a religious word in the first-century, Greco-Roman,
world. It meant to clean, as in
cleaning or washing the stain that dirt left on one's clothes.
The
concept of cleansing as John used it in his letter was in reference to the
blood of Jesus cleansing the believer from the stain that sin left in his
life, a stain that was quite visible in the sight of God.
The idea of blood being a cleaning agent was seen in the Old
Testament blood sacrifices. Those
Old Testament blood sacrifices did not take away sin from God's records.
They merely cleaned the stain of sin from one's life.
These blood sacrifices also cleaned the stain of sin from the Jewish
community, and all that pertained to the tabernacle or The
topic of cleansing first appears in John's letter in 1 John 1:7 through 9.
Love There
are many Greek words that can be translated into English as love, each
having their own distinct meaning. The
Greek word that John consistently used throughout his letter is the Greek
word "agape." This
word emphasizes the sacrificial nature of true love.
In
Christian terms, Jesus sacrificed His earthly life on the cross for our
benefit. His death was the
ultimate act of sacrificial love ever seen, or ever will be seen, in human
history. It is this sacrificial
love that John said must be demonstrated among the Christian believers.
The
word "agape" went out of general usage in the first-century,
Greco-Roman, world, so, the Christians adopted the word "agape" to
refer to God's selfless love. It
is for this reason that Christians today tend to understand the Greek word
"agape" to mean God's love. The
word "love" appears 24 times in most modern versions of 1 John.
Believe The
Greek noun "pistis" (its verbal equivalent is "pisteuo")
is translated into our English New Testament as "faith,"
"belief," "believe," or "trust."
In Biblical terms, as it applies to faith in Jesus, faith or belief
is more than giving mental assent to the historic existence of Jesus.
It is even more than acknowledging the fact that Jesus, while on
earth, was God in human form, although that is a first step in the process
of Biblical believing as defined in New Testament terms.
The
Greek noun "pistis" means "trust."
The Greek verb "pisteuo" means "to trust."
In terms of our relationship with Jesus, the word "faith"
or the word "belief" is the assurance that we have trusted Jesus
with our entire lives. Faith is
being secure in knowing that, once we hand our lives over to Jesus, we can
rest in knowing that He will care for as us He wishes.
We can trust that His will is best for us.
The
word "believe" occurs three times in 1 John.
Its first occurrence is in 1 John 3:23.
Justice
In
our modern-day, western-world concept of legal justice, the process of
exercising justice is based on legislation, law, and legal precedent.
You might think that God's justice is also based on legislation, law,
and legal precedent that have been set forth in Scripture. I
do not believe that to be the case. God
exercises His justice based on His nature.
He, by virtue of who He is, is just, and for that reason, He
pronounces just decrees. We
claim that God is love, and that He is.
In like manner, we should also claim that God is just.
He is the epitome of justice. It
is for this reason that God does not exercise justice based on legislation,
law, or legal precedent. He
bases His acts of justice on who He is, and who He is, without any hint of
prejudice, is perfectly just. We
will first see the topic of God's justice in 1 John 1:9.
Confess
The
Greek word "homolegeo" is translated into English in the New
Testament as "confess." This
Greek word is made up of "homo," meaning the same, and
"legeo," meaning to speak. In
Biblical terms, confession means to "speak the same thing that God
speaks." It means agreeing
with God on all matters, which, as John said in his letter, is fundamental
to Christian doctrine and living, especially when thinking of confessing
sin. In terms of sin, confession
is agreeing with how God defines sin, not how we or our culture defines sin.
We will see this in 1 John 1:9. Know You
might wonder why the word "know" needs to be defined, but in
Biblical terms, it does need special attention.
Obviously, part of knowing something is knowing about that something,
but there is more to knowing than knowing about something.
In
both the Old and New Testaments our English word "know" has a
secondary meaning. In Biblical
terms, to know someone is to have a personal, even intimate, relationship
with that someone. For example,
in the Old Testament, if a husband and wife knew each other, in many
instances that meant they had sexual intimacy with each other.
In Genesis 4:1 we note that Adam knew Eve his wife, and she conceived
Cain. A
secondary meaning to knowing God, then, is to have a personal, even
intimate, relationship with Him. Just
knowing the facts about God does not constitute knowing Him personally.
This Biblical definition of the word "know" as it pertains
to God is vital in understanding what John wrote in his letter since he used
the word "know" quite often. As
a matter of fact, John used this word 22 times in his first letter, the
first of which is in 1 John 2:3. Church
Although
John did not use the English word "church" (ekklesia in Greek) in
his first letter, he did use it three times in his third letter.
He also did not use the word "church" in his gospel
account. It is the apostle Paul
who incorporated the Greek word "ekklesia" into New Testament
theology. In
the first-century, Greco-Roman, world, an ekklesia was a group of people who
were called out of the general public for a specific purpose.
A governing parliament could have been considered an ekklesia.
In
Christian terms, the church is an ekklesia because Jesus has called out its
members from the general public to belong to Him and fulfill His will on
earth. We should not understand
church to be a building as is often the case today.
We should also not view church to simply be an organization, although
in some respects it is that. Church
is a living organism. It is the
community of real people belonging to Jesus.
It is what the apostle Paul called the Body of Christ throughout 1
Corinthians 12 through 14 and elsewhere.
It
is my assertion that the term "Body of Christ" is not a figurative
term. I believe that the church,
the Body of Christ, is in fact the replacement body of Jesus here on earth.
Since Jesus is no longer on earth in physical form, the church, that
houses the Spirit of Christ, is His replacement body on earth. Although
John does not use the Greek word "ecclesia" in his letter, the
concept can be seen throughout his letter.
Antichrist The
apostle John is the only New Testament author who used the word
"antichrist" in his writings.
John used the word in two ways. He
understood that there would be a man, who he called the antichrist, who
would rise to world-wide prominence at the end of this present age.
The antichrist would oppose all things that pertain to Jesus and
would promote himself as being God, and thus, to be worshipped as God.
John
also used the term in a present-day sense when he said that there were many
people, who were not "the antichrist," but had the spirit of the
antichrist, on the world scene as he penned his letter. Some
Bible teachers suggest that there are up to thirty-three different titles
that can be found in the Bible that are attributed to the man John called
the antichrist. In 2
Thessalonians 2, Paul called him 'the man of sin" and "the lawless
one." John
wrote about the antichrist and the spirit of antichrist in chapters 2 and 4
of his first letter. There
will be certain theological terms, and doctrines, that will naturally arise
throughout our study of 1 John. These
doctrines have been formulated by Christian theologians over the centuries
to help explain concepts found in the Bible.
A basic understanding of some of these doctrines will be helpful in
our attempt to understand what John was writing in his letter.
I will now explain a few of these theological terms. Born
Again The
doctrine of being born again finds its origins in John 3:1 through 6 where
Jesus told Nicodemus that he needed to be born again.
Being born again is the process by which the Holy Spirit comes into a
person's very being and which causes him, as the apostle Paul put it in 2
Corinthians 5:17, to become a brand new creation.
As one is born into the material world, so one can be born into the
spiritual world. The Holy
Spirit's entrance into one's being is the doorway into the spiritual world.
It
is the apostle John, the author of 1, 2, 3 John, the gospel of John, and of
the book of Revelation, who wrote about the concept of being born again.
It was the revival preachers of the 1700's and 1800's that brought
this doctrine into the forefront of Protestant Christianity, a Christianity
that, despite the Reformation, became liturgical and lifeless.
It is one of the fundamental teachings of what has come to be known
as the John
wrote about being born of God in 1 John 2:29, 3:9, 4:7, 5:1, 5:4, and 5:18.
Justification Justification
is the process by which God has declared those who have accepted Jesus'
offer of forgiveness of sin to be righteous, just as He Himself is
righteous. The apostle Paul was
the New Testament author who expounded upon this doctrine in his letters to
the Romans and to the Galatians. The
doctrine of justification was lost from much of Christian theology during
the period of history known as the Dark Age of church history.
This period was roughly from 400 AD to 1500 AD.
It was Martin Luther (born 1483 - died 1586) and other Reformation
theologians in the sixteenth-century who, at least in part, began to restore
the doctrine of justification to its New Testament meaning.
John
alludes to the doctrine of justification when he speaks of forgiveness and
righteousness in 1 John 1:9. Sanctification Sanctification
is the process by which the Holy Spirit, in conjunction with the Word of
God, and the cooperation of the believer, enables the believer to become
more completely dedicated to Jesus. This
in turn would cause the believer to sin less as he matured in the Lord.
Like
the doctrine of justification, the doctrine of sanctification had been lost
during the Dark Age of church history. It
was John Wesley (born 1703 - died 1791) and his associates who, at least in
part, began to restore the doctrine of sanctification back into Christian
theology. The doctrine was
called "Entire Sanctification" and became of fundamental doctrine
in the Methodist Movement. Some of John Wesley's followers believed that a
Christian could become sinless. Wesley
himself said that a certain few might reach the state of what he called
"Sinless Perfection" as they drew close to death The
apostle John spoke about the issue of one's dedication to Jesus and His
truth in 1 John 1:5 through 7.
Eternal
Security Eternal
Security is the doctrine that states that once a person is saved, he cannot
be unsaved. Those who oppose
eternal security teaching believe that one can lose his or her salvation.
It was John Calvin (born 1509 - died 1564) who introduced and
popularized the doctrine of Eternal Security in Protestant Christian
theology. This doctrine became a
fundamental teaching within many Baptist denominations.
The
subject of Eternal Security will arise when we study 1 John 2:24 through 27. Trinity
In
simple terms, the doctrine of the Trinity states that God is one in His
essence and nature but consists of three distinct personalities.
This is a difficult concept to comprehend.
The
doctrine of the Trinity was formulated, with variations, over a span of a
couple of hundred years; roughly from 400 to 600 AD.
It took much debate, division, and dissention among church leaders to
reach some kind of consensus on the nature and essence of God, and even then
there were differences in thinking. The
debate and division remain to this very day in parts of the church.
A
discussion will arise over the Trinity when we look into what John said in 1
John 5:6 through 8, especially as we note the discrepancy between the King
James Bible and newer translations of the Bible. Prophetic
Futurism Prophetic
Futurism is the view of prophetic history that states the book of Revelation
is yet to be fulfilled in human history.
This subject arises when John addressed the issue of the antichrist.
This end-time, internationally-esteemed, satanic, leader known as the
"beast" in Revelation 13 is called the antichrist by John in 1
John 2:18, 2:22, and 4:3. Initial
Salvation I
understand the Bible to speak of salvation in terms of a process.
As I will point out in this commentary, the New Testament's concept
of personal salvation can be seen in three distinct verb tenses.
They are as follows: I
was saved. I am being saved,
and, I will be saved. When
thinking in terms of being saved at one point in time, that is a process,
which consists of repentance, faith, and the reception of the Holy Spirit
into one's life. That process, I
call "initial salvation." Others
may call it "being born again," or "being converted,"
or, other such wordings. Initial
salvation is the point in which one gets saved, and enters the life-long
process of salvation that finds its completion, when as the apostle John
said, "we will be like Jesus" at His return to earth (1 John 3:2).
The
New Testament was written in first-century, every-day, street-level, Greek
that is called "Koine Greek." The
Greek written in the New Testament was not what has been called
"Classical Greek." Throughout
centuries theologians were somewhat confused concerning the Greek they read
in the New Testament because it was not written in Classical Greek, which
they were familiar with. Because
of this unfamiliar Greek, some of those theologians in past centuries even
concluded that New Testament Greek had to have been some kind of special
Holy Spirit-inspired Greek. It
was not until the last couple of hundred years when everyday first-century
writings were unearthed and discovered that scholars began to understand
that the New Testament was written in the ordinary, street-level Greek of
the day, and that was not the Classical Greek found in other first-century,
Greco-Roman, literature. For
this reason New Testament scholarship has been greatly enhanced over the
last century and a half.
To
the degree, then, we can begin to understand Koine Greek and its cultural
usage will be the degree to which we can best understand what the New
Testament has to tell us, and that includes what John said in his first
letter. The
most common mistake Christians make in interpreting the Bible is that we
base our interpretive conclusions on our western-world, twenty-first
century, cultural mindset, with its definition of words and concepts.
In other words, we define Biblical words and concepts in the way we
think about them today, and not in the way the original authors thought
about them. For this reason our
interpretations of Biblical concepts often do not reflect what the Bible
writers intended us to know. Understanding
the meaning of first-century Greek words and how they were used back then
helps us understand the Biblical content.
Understanding Koine Greek grammar will help us understand what we
need to know of the Bible. For
this reason I will now briefly explain just three Greek verb tenses that
John used throughout his letter. Obviously
there are other Koine Greek verb tenses we could look into, but if you can
grasp these three, they will enhance your understanding of what you read in
1 John. I
hope this chapter will not scare you away from the study in the following
pages. My desire and prayer is
to make complicated issues simple for all to understand.
If you take the effort to think through what I am about to say
concerning these three Greek verb tenses, it will help you immensely in
understanding what I write in the following pages.
Present
Participle The
word "present" in Greek present participle means that the action
described in a sentence is in present time.
A "participle" is a word that is both a noun and a verb.
This means the emphasis is not just in the action being undertaken in
the sentence. It emphasizes the
one doing the action as well as the action itself.
A Greek present participle, therefore, indicates a continuous action
performed by someone based on who he is as a person.
For example, an auto-mechanic fixes cars because he is an
auto-mechanic. The action of
fixing cars is based on the fact that the one who fixes cars, by virtue of
who he is, is an auto-mechanic. In
contrast, not everyone who fixes a car is an auto-mechanic.
Here
is one example of how John used the present participle. 1
John 2:22 says this: "Who
is the liar, if not the one who denies that Jesus is the Christ? This
one is the antichrist: the one who denies the Father and the Son." The
word "denies" in the phrase "the one who denies ..." is
a Greek present participle. Being
a present participle, means that the person spoken of here is not just one
who denies occasionally. Anyone
can deny every so often. The
apostle Peter denied Jesus at one point in his life.
The one John spoke of, here, denies because he is, by his very
nature, a denier. He constantly
denies because the essence of who he is, is a denier.
Peter denied Jesus, but he, by virtue of who he was, was not a
denier. The present Greek
participle emphasizes, not just what someone does, but what one does because
of who he is. Perfect
Indicative Verb A
perfect indicative Greek verb in a sentence indicates an action that has
taken place in past time and has present-day, certain, implications.
Here is one example of how John used this verb tense.
1 John 2:20 reads: "But
you have an anointing from the Holy One, and all of you know the
truth." The
word "know" in the phrase "all of you know the truth" is
a perfect indicative Greek verb. The
perfect tense means that those to whom John was speaking came to know the
truth in the past and they still knew the truth when he penned this letter.
The indicative part of this Greek verb indicates that John's readers
knowing of the truth was a present, and definite, certainty.
Present
Imperative Verb The
present imperative Greek verb tense indicates an action that is commanded or
mandated in present time. Here
is an example of how John used this verb tense.
1 John 2:15 reads: "Do
not love the world or the things in the world. If
anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him." The
verb "do not love" is a present imperative Greek verb.
This means that John strongly admonished his readers to not love this
world. This was not a suggestion
for them to think about and mull over in their minds.
The word "imperative" tells us that this was more a command
than anything else, and a command to be obeyed in present time.
Authorship There
is no real debate among Evangelical Christian Bible scholars over who penned
this letter. It was written by
John. There is, however, debate
over which John it was who actually wrote the letter.
The majority opinion, to which I hold, is that the disciple and
apostle of Jesus named John wrote this letter as well as 2 John, 3 John, the
gospel of John, and the book of Revelation.
The minority opinion is that the "elder John" who was an
elder in the church in I
hold to the majority opinion for at least two reasons.
The first reason is that the content of this letter and the content
of the gospel of John, which most scholars believe was written by the
apostle John who personally knew Jesus, are extremely similar in their
theology, wording, and content. The
second reason for my opinion is that some early second-century Christian
leaders claimed that the apostle John was the elder John who ended up living
in the city of Papias
was another second-century Christian leader (born 70 AD - died 163 AD).
In his writings he associated the elder John with Peter, James, and
other original disciples of Jesus, thus intimating that the elder John
(presbyteros in Greek meaning older man) as being the apostle John.
Concerning
Papias, you should know that we do not have any of his original writings.
What we do have are quotes of Papias in the writings of Irenaeus
(born around 120 AD - died around 202 AD).
Irenaeus was an important Christian apologist in the second century.
By the second half of the second century when Irenaeus wrote his
books defending the Christian faith, the majority opinion was that John who
was the apostle of Jesus was also the elder John.
I
have said that John was an elder in the church at In
today's ecclesiastical terminology, a bishop is a church leader with
authority over a large geographical area that includes several
congregations. This is sometimes
called "trans-local authority."
I question the idea that John held some kind of official trans-local
ecclesiastical authority over a large geographical region.
However, John was certainly well respected across the Christian
landscape in those days because he was the last of the original apostles.
For that reason Christians across the known world would have esteemed
John above all other church leaders of the day.
However you view this is fine with me.
We all can agree that John was one very important Christian leader,
if not the most important Christian leader, at the end of the first-century.
About John John
was a Jew, who in his younger days, lived in the Roman When
John penned this letter he lived in the Roman city of John
was one of the original disciples and apostles of Jesus.
He has been forever known as the disciple whom Jesus loved.
He is so known because that is how he described himself in John
13:23, 19:26, 20:2, 21:7, and 21:20. Not
that Jesus had favourites but it appears to me that Jesus' and John's
personalities were such that they became close friends.
John
had a brother named James (Matthew 17:1, Mark 5:37) and a father named
Zebedee (Luke 5:10). John and
his brother James were fishermen (Luke 5:8 - 11).
John
outlived all of the other original apostles.
He could easily have been seventy to eighty five years old when he
wrote this letter, and most likely closer to eighty five years old than
seventy years old. This is
important because an older person has much wisdom to pass along to the next
generation. Many things an
elderly person once thought to be important are no longer important in old
age. Only the real important
issues of life are important when you are standing before death's door.
This was especially the case in John's day when an older person was
more respected than he or she is today.
So, because John was an elderly man, what he has written needs our
undivided attention.
The
city of The
province of Asia was one of the most economically prosperous and influential
provinces of the day in the Date of the letter John's
letter was written somewhere between 60 and 100 AD.
The majority opinion is that it was written somewhere between 85 and
100 AD, and probably closer to 100 AD.
For a number of reasons, that I would call speculative and motivated
by a particular view of end-time prophecy, some think that John wrote this
letter prior to 70 AD. I believe
this letter should be dated between 85 and 100 AD.
One
reason why I think this letter was written close to the end of the first
century is because the heresies addressed by John in this letter began to
influence the church during that period of time.
These specific heresies were not prevalent earlier in the century.
Another
reason for me dating this letter close to the end of the first century is
due to the fact that some second-century church leaders believed that to be
the case, as seen in their writings.
Setting and background for the letter It
did not take long for heresy to set into the church.
False doctrine was prevalent within the first generation of the
Christian church. The apostle
Paul's letters to the Corinthians and to the Galatians show this to be true.
As the first century drew closer to its end, with a third generation
of Christians, there were a few heresies that were dividing the church.
This is the occasion, background, and the reason why John would have
written this letter. It is
necessary to understand this in order to fully comprehend the letter's
content. I
have said that historic tradition tells us that John lived in the city of One
heresy concerned the nature of Jesus. One
promoter of this heresy was a man named Cerinthus, who also lived in Another
variation of this heresy stated that the Jesus who walked the roads of
Galilee and Both
of these false ideas about Jesus are a major departure from what John and
others taught. They destroyed
the meaning of the cross of Christ, the resurrection, and Jesus' return to
heaven. They deny what the angel
Gabriel told Mary in Luke 1:28 and following.
There, Mary was told by Gabriel that she would conceive one who would
be called the Son of the Most High. She
would conceive her son, not by natural processes, but by the power of the
Almighty who would come upon her. Clearly,
Jesus was fully God and fully human from the precise moment He was
miraculously conceived in Mary's womb. The
apostle Paul wrote about the true nature and essence of Jesus when he said
that all of who God is, lives in Jesus.
Colossians 2:9 says this: "For
in Him dwells all the fullness
of the Godhead bodily ..." Another
heresy that divided the church at the end of the first-century was the
redefining of what constituted sin. Because
of the pagan belief that material things are evil and spiritual things are
good, some believed that their real person was spiritual.
Their bodies were just temporary suitcases to house their real self.
Those holding to this view were very elitist.
They viewed themselves as being special and holier than the others.
They actually believed they did not sin.
That is to say, their real person, their spiritual self, did not sin,
although their material person did sin.
They ignored the sin of their material self because they believed
that was not their real self. As
a matter of fact, those holding to this view actually enjoyed indulging in
their material sin. We
will see that John addressed both of the above heresies in his letter.
He did so to re-affirm to his Christian readers what was God's truth.
Part of why John would have written this letter would have been to
minimize any confusion these false doctrines would have brought to the minds
of the believers.
Polycarp,
whom I mentioned above, who was a disciple of John, quoted John as saying
the following after seeing Cerinthus in a public bath.
"Let us flee lest also the baths fall in since Cerinthus is
inside, the enemy of the truth." This
quote gives us a hint of how John viewed false doctrine as it applied to
Jesus. He did not tolerate it.
This intolerance is clearly seen in John's letter.
He called the false teachers liars (1 John 2:4) and said that they
were deceivers (1 John 2:26). He
went as far to say that they had the spirit of antichrist (1 John 4:3).
What John said about these heretics would be seen today as culturally
incorrect because of his apparent intolerance.
One
thing we can learn from this fight against false teaching is that the
original followers of Jesus did not believe in the evolution of doctrinal
truth. If truth was not
universally constant then it could not be true.
Truth does not evolve. Truth
is not relative. Truth does not
vary from person to person, from place to place, from culture to culture,
and from time to time. Truth is
universally consistent. After
considering all of the above, John, in 1 John 2:26, stated the reason for
this letter, which confirms what I have just written.
The verse reads: "I
have written these things to you concerning those who are trying to deceive
you." John's
Readers The
question should be asked to whom John penned his letter.
Unlike the apostle Paul's letters, John did not specifically state to
whom he directed this letter in his opening sentence.
1
John 1:3 states part of the reason why John wrote this letter.
It was so that his readers could have fellowship with him and his
associates. This implies that
John had Christians in mind when he wrote his letter.
The use of the word "my little children" throughout this
letter also suggests that John was writing to Christians.
John, an elderly man, viewed his readers as "children in the
faith," just as Paul viewed Timothy as a "son in the faith." All
of the above being said, 1 John 5:13 specifically states to whom John was
writing. The verse reads: "I
have written these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God
so that you may know that you have eternal life." There
is no dispute. John was writing
to Christians. This is an important point as we will see when I comment on 1
John 1:5 through 2:2.
John's Perspective It
is a biological fact that not one person is completely like another person.
Each of us approach issues from our own distinct vantage point that
is influenced by our God-given character traits.
Differences between authors of the New Testament are clearly seen in
how they write, what they write, and how they approach and understand
Biblical issues. A close reading
of John's writings, Paul's writings, and James' writings, shows that to be
true. Each of these men
understood certain theological issues in a different light.
Many have struggled over an apparent discrepancy between how James
understood faith in relation to works and how Paul understood faith as it
relates to works. I do not
believe for a minute that they disagreed on the matter of faith and works.
They simply approached the subject from a different vantage point.
I
mention this now because John approached some theological issues from a
different vantage point than Paul. John's
writings show him to be pastorally orientated.
Paul had a pastor's heart but he was very theologically orientated.
He was a teacher of Biblical truth.
Even Peter said that some of Paul's writings were difficult to
understand (2 Peter 3:16). An
example of what I am saying is this. Of
all of the times the Greek word that is translated as "abides" or
"remains," as in, "if we love one another, God remains in us
..." (1 John 4:12) John used it more than any other Biblical writer.
So, the theological issues surrounding these words are seen by John
from his own distinct vantage point that sheds theological light on the
issues about which these words speak. Another
example is that in all of the New Testament, only John penned the Greek word
"parakletos" in reference to Jesus.
We will learn something from John's vantage-point that we do not
learn from the rest of the New Testament concerning Jesus in this respect.
Theme of the letter Many
Bible teachers suggest a theme for John's letter.
If I was asked to suggest a theme, I would say this.
The theme is an encouragement for Christians to live in loving
Christian community with correct doctrine in the face of divisive and
destructive heresies. Things have not changed in the church over the years. There are still heresies and there are still divisions caused by these heresies. Therefore, what John wrote to his readers certainly is relevant for us today.
(1
John 1:1 - 4) The Text 1 - What
was from the beginning, what we have heard, what we have seen with our
eyes, what we have observed and have touched with our hands, concerning the
word of life — 2 that
life was revealed, and we have seen it and we testify and declare to
you the eternal life that was with the Father and was revealed to us —
3 what
we have seen and heard we also declare to you, so that you may also have
fellowship with us; and indeed our fellowship is with the Father and
with his Son Jesus Christ. 4 We
are writing these things so that our joy may be complete. My
Commentary Verse
1 "What
was from the beginning, what we have heard, what we have seen with our
eyes, what we have observed and have touched with our hands, concerning the
word of life — " To
begin, we should note that even though we call 1 John a letter, it was not
written as a traditional letter usually seen in the first-century,
Greco-Roman, world. The letter
did not have an introduction of who wrote the letter and to whom the letter
was written. Hence, there has
been a debate over to whom it was written.
Unlike the apostle Paul, who always directed his letter to specific
people and introduced himself in some format, John did neither.
As
I wrote in my introduction, there is no doubt that John was writing to
Christians who were suffering attacks from false believers with false
doctrines. 1 John 1:3 tells us
that part of the reason for this letter was so John and his associates could
engage in godly fellowship with his readers.
This implies that John's readers were Christians.
Also, the use of the words "my little children" in this
letter suggests that John was writing to Christians who he considered to be
his children in the Lord. Moreover,
John specifically said that he was writing to believers in 1 John 5:13.
Knowing to whom John was writing helps us understand what he was
saying throughout this letter, and especially what he said in 1 John 1:5
through 1 John 2:2, which we will come to later.
As
I also wrote in my introduction, there has been a debate over who wrote this
letter. You can refer back to my
introduction where I said that I believe that John the apostle, who was also
John the elder in The
words "what was from the beginning" in verse 1 remind us of how
John opened his gospel account. There
is, however, a difference in how we should understand the words "in the
beginning" in each account. In
John's gospel account "in the beginning" refers to creation as
found in Genesis 1. In John’s
letter the words "from the beginning" refer to the days when John
and his fellow disciples followed Jesus throughout the Galilean and Judean
country-side. I believe the
context of these words in verse 1 shows this to be the case.
The
words "what we have seen with our eyes, what we have observed and have
touched with our hands" need some thought.
Right here in John's opening statement he refuted the false teaching
that Jesus was some kind of phantom or ghostly being while on earth.
John and others not only heard Jesus speak, but they touched Jesus.
Jesus was no phantom. He
had a physical body that could be touched and felt.
How
should we understand the pronoun "we" in verse 1?
Is "we" the corporate "we," meaning John and his
readers, or, should the word "we" be understood to mean something
else? The pronoun "we"
cannot refer to John and his readers because John said that this
"we" heard, saw, and touched Jesus.
Most, if not all, of John's readers were not alive when Jesus was on
earth in order to see Him, hear Him, or touch Him.
Besides, The
pronoun "we" is the exclusive "we," meaning John and his
associates who personally knew Jesus when He lived on earth.
In part, this is why I believe the words "in the
beginning," that I commented on in an earlier paragraph, are in
reference to the days when Jesus walked on this planet.
There
are a couple of other ways of thinking concerning the pronoun "we"
which I will not elaborate on, other than to mention this one.
In more recent years some have believed that the pronoun
"we" is what is called an "authoritative singular we."
I know that sounds complicated. This
simply means that there is credible historic evidence that those with some
measure of authority used the plural pronoun "we" in a singular
sense. Since John would have had
some kind of authority due to being one of the original apostles, some Bible
teachers think the pronoun "we" as it is used here is just another
way of saying "I." The
phrase "the Word of life" refers to Jesus.
The Greek word "logos" is translated in English as
"Word" in this verse, as it is in John's gospel account.
In John 1:1 Jesus is described as the Word who was both with God and
was God. The verse reads: "In
the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was
God." How
John described Jesus in John 1:1 addresses the Deity of Christ, which means
that Jesus was fully God and fully human while on earth.
John 1:14 states that the Word became flesh, or human, and it did so
in the form of Jesus, who unquestionably, lived among humanity.
Here is the quote. "The
Word became flesh and dwelt among us. We
observed his glory, the glory as the one and only Son from the Father, full
of grace and truth." It
is this Jesus who John proclaimed in his letters, in his gospel account, and
in the book of Revelation. It is
this Jesus who John and others heard, saw, and touched, as seen here in
verses 1 and 2. By making this
proclamation at the beginning of his letter, John was refuting the false
teaching concerning Jesus that was being spread by the heretics.
The real Jesus was someone who people saw, heard, and touched.
He was not a phantom. Neither
was He just an ordinary man who had the so-called Christ Spirit come upon
Him when He was water baptized, and subsequently leave Him prior to his
death. Jesus was God in a human
body, and He was so from conception.
The
Greek word "logos" that is translated in English as
"Word" in this passage was an important word in the first-century,
Greco-Roman, world. Greek
philosophy understood logos to be the supreme being or god over all other
gods. John took this well-known
religious Greek word and applied it to Jesus.
His point is most significant. He
proclaimed that the supreme god that the Greek philosophers called
"logos" was in fact Jesus. This
confronted the pagan, religious thinking of the day.
It also refuted the false teaching promoted by Cerinthus and others
concerning who they claimed was the real Jesus.
I
personally believe that the term "Word of life" is in reference to
Jesus, but there are some Bible teachers who believe the term refers to the
message of Christ. I understand
the reasons for believing the Word of life is the message, but still, I am,
at least at the present time, understanding the term to refer to Jesus.
Verse
2 "that
life was revealed, and we have seen it and we testify and declare to
you the eternal life that was with the Father and was revealed to us
—" Note
the phrase "that life was revealed."
The word "revealed" is translated in English from the Greek
aorist verb "phaneroo." An
aorist verb is a one-time action verb. This
means that at one specific moment in past human history, the eternal life,
the eternal Word, Jesus Himself, who was with the Father, appeared in human
history in the form of our Lord Jesus Christ.
This appearance or revelation was a one-time event, because that is
what a Greek aorist verb means. Once
again, John was speaking about the doctrine of the Deity of Christ.
He was confirming the pre-existence of Jesus before He was conceived
in Mary's womb. John, in his
opening remarks, was refuting the false Jesus that Cerinthus and others were
imposing upon the church. The
true understanding of Jesus is fundamental to Christian teaching, and
without it all subsequent teaching cannot be trusted.
Any other doctrine that is built on a false view of Jesus is
heretical. You
might wonder at which point in history it was when the Word of life, Jesus,
was revealed. Some might suggest
that He was revealed when Mary was told by the angel Gabriel that her son
would be called the Son of the Most High.
This could be seen as a revelation, but it was only a revelation
directed to one person, Mary. Jesus
was revealed to the world when John the Baptist baptized Him in water.
It was then that the voice from heaven spoke the following words, as
written in Luke 3:22. “... and the Holy
Spirit descended on him in a physical appearance like a dove. And a voice
came from heaven: 'You are my beloved Son; with you I am
well-pleased.'" The
baptism of Jesus was in fact the heavenly declaration, spoken from heaven
and directed to the world. The
eternal Word of life was in all reality Jesus.
He had no beginning and He has no end.
He always was, and He will always be.
John
told his readers that the eternal life that was with the Father and that
appeared in humanity was what "we," the exclusive we - John and
those with him when Jesus lived on earth, declared.
The word "declare" is important.
The announcement of God becoming human was, and still is, a
declaration of Biblical truth. It
is not something to be debated or questioned.
Note
the pronoun "you" in verse 2 and following.
This supports my point that the pronoun "we" is not in
reference to John and his readers in these first four verses.
If "you" refers to John's readers, then "we"
cannot refer to his readers. Verse
3 "what
we have seen and heard we also declare to you, so that you may also have
fellowship with us; and indeed our fellowship is with the Father and
with his Son Jesus Christ." Note
the word "fellowship" in verse 3.
It is translated from the Greek word "koinonia" which means
"to share or hold something in common with others."
What John and his readers held in common was Jesus, the eternal life,
and this created a special bond of fellowship between John and those reading
this letter. We
should know that the word “fellowship” (koinonia in Greek) in its
Biblical usage means more than having a conversation with someone over a cup
of coffee, as we might think today. In
New Testament terms, koinonia, or fellowship, means the sharing of each
other’s lives, a practice we have lost in much of the western-world
church. I am not talking about
communal living. I'm talking
about building a heart-felt, personal, relationship with those to whom Jesus
has placed you alongside in the Body of Christ, the church.
I'm talking about meeting each other’s needs, whether they are
emotional, material, or spiritual.
John
went on to say that he had fellowship with both the Father and Jesus the
Son. We will learn, later, that
this fellowship, or this communication, or common sharing of lives, is made
possible through the Holy Spirit that will live within each and every true
believer. You
may not have realized that the true believer has fellowship or communion
with both God the Father and Jesus the Son, as John stated here, but he
does. Jesus Himself said that
this would be the case in John 14:23. He
said this: "Jesus
replied, 'Anyone who loves me will obey my teaching.
My Father will love them, and we will come to them and make our home
with them.'" Note
that Jesus said that "we," both He and the Father, will make their
home in the life of the true believer. This
is realized when the Holy Spirit comes to live within you as a believer.
The Holy Spirit is both the Spirit of the Father and the Spirit of
the Son. This speaks about the
unity of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Concerning
the Christian having fellowship with both the Father and His Son, he can
have this fellowship because the two are one.
Jesus alluded to this in John 14:9.
The text reads: "Jesus
said to him, 'Have I been among you all this time and you do not know me,
Philip? The one who has seen me
has seen the Father. How can you
say, Show us the Father?'" If
Philip indeed saw Jesus, which he did, then in one sense of the word, he saw
God the Father. God the Father
has reflected Himself in Jesus. You
might say Jesus is the mirror-image of God.
Hebrews 1:3 puts it this way. "The
Son is the radiance of God’s glory and the exact expression of his nature,
sustaining all things by his powerful word.
After making purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of
the Majesty on high." John
also spoke of fellowship with other believers. Once a person has true
communion or fellowship with the Father and with Jesus through the Holy
Spirit, he automatically has fellowship and communion with his brothers and
sisters in Christ. Paul, in 1
Corinthians 12:13 said that all true believers are baptized, or immersed, by
the Holy Spirit, into one body, the Body of Christ, the church.
This means that when the Holy Spirit is poured into your life, you
not only share your life with the Father and Jesus, you share your life with
those to whom Jesus has placed you alongside in the Body of Christ.
This is what John is getting at when he told his readers that they
should expect to have fellowship with him.
I repeat that this is more than the simple sharing over a cup of
coffee that we call "fellowship" these days.
The Greek word "koinonia" that is translated as
"fellowship" in its Biblical context implies the sharing of lives.
As Jesus shares His life with us, so we share our lives with our
brothers and sisters in Christ. Note
that John said that believers have fellowship with both God the Father and
Jesus. Without getting into a
discussion about the doctrine of the Trinity, John does point out a clear
distinction between the Father and the Son.
Along with this thought, and without getting into the Greek
grammatical details, the Greek construction of the words "with the
Father and with His Son" picture the Son and the Father as both being
God. Again, this speaks about
the Deity of Christ, and also about the unity between the Father and the
Son, Jesus.
Note
the word "Christ" in verse 3.
"Christ" means "one who is anointed, or installed,
into a specific role for a specific reason."
"Christ" is not a proper name.
It is a title. Jesus is
both Lord and Christ. Jesus
being Lord means more than Jesus being a king.
The word "Lord,” in Biblical terms as it applies to Jesus,
means Jesus is God because all the way through the Old Testament God was
known as the Lord. “Christ,"
or "Messiah," means the anointed one who came to do God's will.
Over time, the title "Christ" has in some circles become a
common name and for that reason some call Jesus, "Christ," as if
"Christ" was a name like the name "Jesus."
I prefer to keep "Christ" as a title and not a name.
When
people called Jesus "Lord" in John's day, they were saying that
Jesus was in fact God, a fact that the false believers rejected. When
they called Jesus "Christ" they were admitting that He was the
long-awaited-for Messiah that would take away the sins of the world, another
fact that the false believers rejected.
Verse
4 "We
are writing these things so that our joy may be
complete." The
words of this verse tell us that John was writing what he did in order that
the joy that comes from knowing Jesus and having the Holy Spirit in one's
life, would be in John and his associates.
Any true Christian pastor, apostle, or leader has a good measure of
personal joy, but, that joy becomes overflowing joy when those they are
called to care for become mature Christians in the Lord.
I believe this is what John is talking about here.
Jesus
spoke of joy under stress, prior to being arrested by the Roman soldiers.
He certainly knew all about joy under stress.
Even in the midst of trouble that was leading to His death, Jesus had
joy. He, thus, could provide His
disciples with joy. In His
prayer in John 17:13, Jesus prayed this: "Now
I am coming to you, and I speak these things in the world so that they may
have my joy completed in them." The
pronoun "they" in this part of Jesus' prayer refers to His
followers. He wanted them to be
filled with joy. This
joy is not some bubbly, excitable happiness.
It is a deep-in-the-heart joy that at times may not even be possible
to express. Much too often we
confuse outward expressions of joy, thinking they are always a result of
deep-in-the-heart-felt joy. That
is not always the case.
To
be consistent, the pronoun "we" in verse 4 must be the same
exclusive "we" as above. It
is John and those with him while Jesus was on earth that the pronoun
"we" is in reference to.
You
may have noticed some disparity from one version of the Bible to another
version of the Bible concerning the word "our" that appears in
verse 4 in the CSB version. Some
versions of the Bible use the word "your."
This variation is due to a textual difficulty that makes it difficult
to know what English word to use. By
the end of the first century, in the Greco-Roman world the Greek words
translated into English as "your" and "our" were written
and pronounced almost the same way. It
is for this reason that the difficulty in the process of translation has
arisen. Whether the word should
be "our" or "your" really does not make a lot of
difference. Joy expressed among
the brotherhood of believers is part of true Christian fellowship.
Review John
was making the point that he actually saw the eternal life, who is our Lord
Jesus Christ that was birthed into a human body.
John saw Jesus, heard Jesus, and touched Jesus.
Jesus was not a phantom as some false teachers taught.
There was no way that anyone would ever convince John otherwise.
Jesus
was, and still is, eternal. He
had no beginning and He has no end. He
is both with God and is God. The
true believer, to whom John was writing, through the indwelling Holy Spirit,
could have fellowship or communion with both God the Father and Jesus on a
moment-by-moment, daily basis. This
fellowship, or life-sharing experience as the word "fellowship"
means, extends to those to whom the true believer is joined in the Body of
Christ. When this fellowship is
properly realized there is a joy that springs forth in the life of the
believer that spreads throughout the Body of Christ, the church.
Present-day
applications If
you are a Christian, then you have no alternative but to believe or trust in
the Biblical Jesus. According to
John and the rest of the New Testament, Jesus was fully God and fully human
while on earth, and He was so from the moment He was conceived in Mary's
womb by the power of God. Jesus
is also the eternal life that pre-existed, before being conceived in Mary's
womb, and, He was both with God and was God, as John 1:1 states.
Jesus
being eternal means that He had no beginning and has no end.
Again, this is the doctrine of the Deity of Christ.
This doctrine is fundamental to all we hold true as Christians.
Any denial of this truth means that you do not believe in the
Biblical Jesus. You believe in a
false Jesus, one who is not the Lord Jesus Christ of the Bible.
You trust in a false Jesus who cannot save you.
Any subsequent doctrine that is built on a doctrine of a false Jesus
is inherently false itself. Understanding
the real Jesus is the most basic truth we hold as Christians.
Although
you and I have never seen, heard, or touched Jesus in person as John did, we
do touch Him through the presence of the Holy Spirit in our lives.
He is not a figment of our imagination.
He is real, and as Jesus said in John 20:29, we are blessed because
even though we have not seen Him in person, we still trust our lives with
Him. Take it from Jesus: if you
trust your life with Him who you have not seen with your eyes, you are
blessed. After
returning to heaven, Jesus appeared on earth again via His Spirit.
Acts 2 describes how Jesus came to live in the lives of one hundred
and twenty believers in the form of the Holy Spirit, sometimes called the
"Spirit of Jesus" or the "Spirit of Christ" in the New
Testament. In like fashion, He
also has appeared in the lives of those of us who believe today.
If you are a true born-again-of-the-Spirit believer, the Holy Spirit,
or the Spirit of Christ or the Spirit of Jesus, lives within you.
This means that on a daily basis, from moment to moment, you can be
in communion, or have fellowship, with Jesus and the Father.
It is this fellowship that is vital to our lives, but there is more.
Because your brothers and sisters in Jesus have the same Holy Spirit
within them, there is a fellowship or communion with them that
non-Christians cannot experience. This
fellowship is vital to our growth as Christians and to the success of the
church's representation of Jesus to the world.
Far too often Christians have down-played the importance of brotherly
and sisterly fellowship with those to whom Jesus has placed them alongside
in the Body of Christ. That
should never be. When we fail to
recognize and live out this Biblical truth we cause great harm to the
church, and to Jesus Himself. As
a reminder, fellowship in Biblical terms means the sharing of your life with
those to whom Jesus has placed you alongside in the Body of Christ. We
share each other’s lives for two reasons.
The first is for mutual support, encouragement, instruction, and
correction if necessary. The
second reason is to work or to function in ministry alongside those to whom
Jesus has joined us. We work
with them to bring the message of salvation and the Throughout
John's letter we will see several characteristics of a true Christian.
The character trait we see in this section is that the true believer
is one who has fellowship with God the Father, with Jesus His Son, and with
those to whom the believer is joined in the Body of Christ.
By noting this characteristic I am not saying that this fellowship is
always worked out perfectly in our lives.
We are still human and we still fail.
However, the desire for such fellowship is at the heart of a true
believer. John
spoke of a joy, an inner joy that we as true believers have.
Even in the midst of trouble and sorrows, if we are in fellowship
with Jesus and our heavenly Father through the Holy Spirit, there is an
inexpressible inner joy. I use
the word "inexpressible" because the joy John spoke of here is
more than a superficial happiness. It
is a deep-seated, heart-felt, joy that may or may not be easily expressed,
but will have a major impact on the way we live. For
clarity, I have said that a true believer is one who has the Holy Spirit
living within him. When I say
that, I am not equating believing with receiving the Holy Spirit into one's
life. I distinguish between
believing in Jesus and receiving His Spirit.
I do not view believing and receiving as being the same event.
Believing leads to receiving, as I believe can be seen in what Peter
said in Acts 2:38. He said this: "Peter
replied, 'Repent and be baptized, each of you, in the name of Jesus Christ
for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy
Spirit.'" Note
the order in what Peter said. He
first told his audience that they needed to repent.
He told them that they then needed to be water baptized, which is an
expression of faith, or, an expression that you will now trust Jesus with
your life. The result, then, of
repenting and believing means that you will receive the Holy Spirit.
Receiving, then, is not believing.
It is the result of believing, and like the Samaritans in Acts 8, may
take place at a future date after initially believing.
That being said, the general thinking is that once someone repents
and believes, the result is receiving the Spirit, more or less, at the same
time. (1
John 1:5 - 7) The
Text 5
- This is the message we have heard from him and declare to you: God is
light, and there is absolutely no darkness in him. 6 If
we say, "We have fellowship with him," and yet we walk in
darkness, we are lying and are not practicing the truth. 7 If
we walk in the light as he himself is in the light, we have fellowship
with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin.
My
Commentary Introduction
to 1 John 1:5 through 2:2 This
portion of John's letter, from verses 1 through to chapter 2, verse 2, has
caused me more trouble in interpreting its meaning than most passages of the
Bible. The reason for this is
due to the fact that the most common interpretations of parts of this
section within the Evangelical church have some problems that few seem
willing to work through. Part
of the difficulty of this passage concerns the forgiveness of sins.
Some people, including some Evangelical denominations, teach that as
a Christian you must confess your post-conversion sins.
If you don't, they are not forgiven.
This presents us with a problem: what happens if we neglect to
confess a sin? Are we still
saved? For example, I know of people who say that suicide is a sin.
If a Christian commits suicide, he has no chance to confess that sin,
and thus, will end up in the Other
people teach, as I do, that all sin, past sin, present sin, and future sin,
is forgiven by God upon one becoming a true believer.
At that point the Christian's name is written in the Lamb's Book of
Life where there is no sin associated with his or her name. The problem this
view presents us with is this: what are we to do with certain New Testament
passages that tell the Christian to confess his sins apparently in order to
be forgiven? Does God forgive a
sin twice? Is there any logic in
thinking that God could forgive a sin that He has already forgiven?
Paul,
in Colossians 2:13 said that all, and I believe that means, all past sins,
all present sins, and all future sins, of the believer have been forgiven.
He wrote this: "And
when you were dead in trespasses and in the uncircumcision of your flesh, he
made you alive with him and forgave us all our trespasses." On
the other hand, the apostle James seems to suggest that sins we commit after
becoming a Christian are forgiven once we ask forgiveness.
James 5:15 says this: "The
prayer of faith will save the sick person, and the Lord will raise him up;
if he has committed sins, he will be forgiven." I
am sure you can see the difficulty here.
Are all of our sings forgiven, or, are only those we ask forgiveness
for forgiven? John is brought
into the debate. 1 John 1:9
reads: "If
we confess our sins, he is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and
to cleanse us from all unrighteousness." If
John was addressing Christians in this verse, and that has been debated,
then, apparently Christians need to confess their sins in order to be
forgiven. How
do we, thus, reconcile what seems to be two opposite view points.
This is my explanation, and it may or may not suit everyone.
I do believe that all of my sins, past, present, and future sins,
were forgiven when I accepted Jesus' offer of forgiveness upon becoming a
Christian. It was after that
confession of sin, faith in Jesus, and receiving the Holy Spirit into my
life, that my name was written in the Lamb's Book of Life where there is no
sin associated with my name. I
am, thus, saved. Concerning
this salvation, the New Testament speaks of salvation in three verb tenses.
I was saved. Romans 8:24
says this: "Now
in this hope we were saved, but hope that is seen is not hope, because who
hopes for what he sees?" "I
am being saved. 2 Corinthians
2:15 reads: "For
to God we are the fragrance of Christ among those who are being saved and
among those who are perishing." I
will be saved. Romans 5:10 says
this: "For
if, while we were enemies, we were reconciled to God through the death of
his Son, then how much more, having been reconciled, will we be saved by his
life." I
think it is clear. The above
verses express our salvation in three verb tenses.
I was saved. I am being
saved. I will be saved.
All this means that at one point in my life I got saved.
During my life as a Christian, I am being saved as salvation is being
worked out in my daily life, until the day when Jesus returns to earth.
On that day I will be completely saved because Jesus will transform
who I am into being like who He presently is (1 John 3:2).
When
we understand salvation in these three verb tenses, it only makes sense that
all of what salvation is, must be seen in these three verb tenses.
When it comes to forgiveness, then, I was forgiven.
I am being forgiven. I
will be forgiven. The
next question to be asked is this. How
is all of this worked out in our lives?
I will attempt to answer this question in the following pages.
Verse
5 "This
is the message we have heard from him and declare to you: God is light, and
there is absolutely no darkness in him." Verse
5 begins with "This is the message."
The Greek word "epaggelia" is translated as
"message" in this verse. This
word is made up of "epa," meaning "upon," and
"angello," meaning "to proclaim.”
Our English words "evangelical" and "evangelize"
originate from this Greek word. The
message that John was referring to must be spoken to be effective.
That is what "epaggelia" means.
I
have heard people say that we should live the gospel message and if
necessary speak it. That is not
Biblical. Unless the gospel is
proclaimed in audible words, it has no value.
Paul, in Romans 10:14, made this point perfectly clear.
He wrote this: "How,
then, can they call on him they have not believed in?
And how can they believe without hearing about him?
And how can they hear without a preacher?" Note
again the pronoun "we" in verse 5.
To be contextually consistent with what I have been saying, the
pronoun "we" in this verse is the exclusive "we."
It is John and the original apostles who were alive when Jesus lived
on earth. They had preached, and
John still did preach, the message. The
pronoun "you" in this verse also confirms the pronoun
"we" to be in reference to the exclusive "we."
The pronoun "we" is John and his associates.
The pronoun "you" is in reference to John's readers who
were Christians. You can read my
comments concerning John's readers being believers, in my introduction and
in my comments on 1 John 1:1 through 4.
The
words "have preached" are a Greek perfect verb.
A perfect verb is a completed past-time action with present-day
implications. This means that
John and the original disciples in the past preached the message that had
present-day relevance in the lives of those to whom John was presently
writing. The
specific message that John wrote about was that "God is light, and
there is absolutely no darkness in Him."
The Greek construction of this phrase tells us that God is the
epitome of light. He is not one
light among other lights. He is
the source of light, whether figurative light or natural light.
John
was speaking metaphorically when he wrote the word "light."
Light, as John used it in his gospel account speaks of being without
sin. Darkness, on the other
hand, as John usually used it, speaks of sin and wickedness.
The word "light" in association with Jesus is used
twenty-three times in the Gospel of John.
God
is sinless perfection. There is
no hint of evil or wickedness in Him. This
is the fundamental truth that John will build on in the following verses.
He will say that light and darkness cannot co-exist. Where
there is light there is no darkness and where there is darkness there is no
light. One either lives in the
light of God or lives in the darkness of sin.
There is no middle ground. It
was theologically black or white in John's mind.
Jesus
spoke of light as being, what I might call, a search-light that exposes the
sin of those living in darkness. Jesus
made this point in John 3:20. The
text reads: "For
everyone who does evil hates the light and avoids it, so that his deeds may
not be exposed." The
concept of God's light being a search-light into the soul is yet another way
in which the New Testament uses and understands the word "light."
Verse
6 "If
we say, 'We have fellowship with him,' and yet we walk in darkness, we
are lying and are not practicing the truth." From
verse 6 through to chapter 2, verse 2, John stated three illogical false
claims that were being expounded by those claiming to be Christian when in
fact they were not Christian. John
addressed these false claims in terms of hypothetical proposals.
His focus was not on those expounding these false claims but on
making sure his readers were thinking right when it came to Christian
doctrine and practice.
After
stating each false claim John pointed out its problem and then provided his
Christian readers with a statement of truth that was meant to re-affirm the
truth to them. They needed
this re-affirmation because of any confusion these heresies would have
brought their way. I
remind you that John was addressing the false claims in this section, not
specifically the heretics. That
being said, I think I can safely say he had the heretics in the back of his
mind when he penned these words. His
readers would have also had the heretics in their minds as they read John's
letter. You
will note that each of the false claims that John addressed here begins with
the words "if we say." I
believe the pronoun "we" in this section of John's letter is in
reference to John and his Christian readers.
That being said, we should know that John was not saying that his
Christian readers were saying, or believing, these heresies, because they
were not. John was saying that
if we did say, or did believe, these heresies, then, there would be a
natural consequence to what we say and believe.
John was addressing each of these heretical claims in the form of a
proposition. There is no
suggestion that his readers embraced these false claims.
As a matter of fact, as you read John's letter you will note that he
confirms to his Christian readers that they did not embrace these false
claims. Let
me say what I have just said this way. If
I overhear two people discussing two different views on a certain issue, and
then, I decide to join the conversation, I might say this.
"Listen guys. I
propose that if we say such and such, then, such and such is the natural
outcome." The pronoun
"we" in my statement would refer to the three of us.
I am not suggesting that any of us actually believe what I am
proposing. I am simply making a
proposal for us all to think through. The
words "if we say" are just a grammatical means of speech to
introduce a propositional statement. I
believe John could have easily said, "if anyone says," as he did
say in 1 John 4:20. He could
have also said, "if you say."
Saying, "if we say," is merely a softer, less harsh, way of
saying, "if you say."
Verse
6 says that "If
we say, 'We have fellowship with him,' and yet we walk in darkness, we
are lying and are not practicing the truth."
The word "walk" must not be understood as walking
down a street. "Walk,"
as it is often used throughout the Bible, speaks about a lifestyle.
John
was proposing that if he or his readers claimed to be in communion with God
but lived a lifestyle of darkness and sin, then he and they, or anyone else,
would be lying and not living in the truth.
John brought this false claim to the attention of his readers because
the heretics were teaching that a Christian could have fellowship with God
and live a lifestyle of sin. Remember,
John was objecting to this false claim by means of a proposal.
He was not specifically refuting the heretics in a direct way,
although indirectly, one might say he was.
He was just making sure his readers understood the issues they were
facing.
This was a re-affirmation to the believers of the gospel truth that a
Christian does not live a lifestyle of sin.
There is simply no logic in thinking that one who lives a life of sin
can share his life with a God who is pure goodness and righteousness.
I
think it is interesting that John focused on the false teaching instead of
the false teachers. Far too
often as Christians, especially in our church circles, we point the finger
at people when we should be pointing the finger at wrong thinking.
That being said, sometimes you do have to expose the heretic for who
he is. The apostle Paul, and
even Jesus Himself, was not afraid of doing that.
Paul, in 1 Timothy 5:20 told Timothy this:
"Publicly
rebuke those who sin, so that the rest will be afraid."
In
2 Timothy 2:17 and 18 Paul even mentioned two men by name who had wandered
away from the truth and were teaching false doctrine.
Their names are Hymeneaus and Philetus.
These men are now forever known for their sin. Note
how John viewed truth. For him,
truth was not something to simply accept or adopt in one's thinking.
Truth was something that must be lived out in one's life in a
consistent way. Believing the
truth is one thing. Living the
truth is something altogether different.
Verse
7 "If
we walk in the light as he himself is in the light, we have fellowship
with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all
sin." Verse
7 states the truth that is contrasted to the false claim seen in verse 6.
John
said that "If
we walk in the light as he himself is in the light, we have fellowship
with one another, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, cleanses us from all
sin." Because the light is
associated with God in verse 5 the pronoun "he" in this verse is
in reference to God. Verse
7 follows the same format as verse 6. So,
when John wrote "if we" here in verse 7, the pronoun
"we" refers to John and his Christian readers.
John refuted the false claim with the truth of God and at the same
time re-affirmed that truth to his readers.
The truth he re-affirmed was that those who live in the light of
God's truth have fellowship with one another and Jesus' blood cleanses them
from sin. Those who live in the
light of God's truth are true Christians.
True
believers have fellowship, that is, the sharing of their lives, with one
another. Such fellowship cannot
be realized between them and false believers.
The two lifestyles cannot harmoniously co-exist.
That is why the false believers left the church, as seen in 1 John
2:18 and 19. The apostle Paul
wrote about fellowship between true and false believers, in 2 Corinthians
6:14. He said this: "Don’t
become partners with those who do not believe.
For what partnership is there between righteousness and lawlessness?
Or what fellowship does light have with darkness?" Knowing
that Biblical fellowship implies the sharing of lives and not just a
friendly conversation, a heretic cannot share his life with a Christian.
The word "fellowship" is translated from the Greek word
"koinonia." This word
means "to hold something in common with another."
The New Testament teaches that Christians share their very lives with
one another because they hold the life of Jesus, through His Spirit, in
common with each other. The
concept of sharing lives means much more than sharing a cup of coffee, in
what is commonly called a time of fellowship after a Sunday morning meeting
of the saints.
In
verse 6, the false claim stated was that one could have fellowship with God
and still live in darkened sin. You
might think, then, that John would comment on this false view of having
fellowship with God while living a life of sin in verse 7, but he did not.
Instead of addressing the idea of having fellowship with God John
addressed the idea of having fellowship with members in the church.
One who has fellowship with God, will have fellowship with those to
whom they have been placed alongside in the Body of Christ.
That is simple Biblical logic. Christians
are joined to God and to fellow Christians by the Holy Spirit.
The same Spirit that unites a person with God unites that person with
others who have the Spirit of God in their lives.
The
false believers who claimed to have fellowship with God in John's day did
not have fellowship with the believers.
They had actually left the church, as seen in 1 John 2:18 and 19.
If, by chance, the true Christians had thoughts of these false
believers in mind, when they read this letter, they would have realized that
the false believers were indeed false, and why?
It was because they left the church. John
introduced the word "sin" into the discussion here, in verse 7.
The heresy John would have had in mind concerned what constituted
sin. The heresy claimed that a
true spiritual person could not sin. It
claimed that one's real self was spiritual and that spiritual self could not
sin. On the other hand, one's
material self did sin, but that did not matter because ones material or
physical self was not considered one's real self.
This false doctrine was a product of mixing first-century Greek
philosophy into Christian doctrine, thus corrupting the truth of God. There
are a few definitions of sin found in the Bible, all contributing to its
full meaning. 1 John 5:15 says
that all wrongdoing or unrighteousness is sin.
Romans 14:23 says that anything done apart from faith in Jesus is
sin. Colossians 2:13 equates sin
with a transgression. The word
"transgression" means to stumble and fall.
Most know sin to mean "missing the mark of a righteous life God
requires for us to live" because "missing the mark" is the
simple meaning of the Greek word "hamartia" that is translated as
“sin” in the New Testament. As
humans, we consistently miss the mark of God's righteous life that He
requires of us. As
a side note, I believe that acts of sin are not our biggest problem.
Our biggest problem is our sinful nature that causes us to commit
acts of sin. This is what Paul
battled with in his own life, as stated in Romans 7.
This is what Paul meant when he wrote about the flesh warring against
the Spirit, in Galatians 5:17. That
verse says: "For
the flesh desires what is against the Spirit, and the Spirit desires what is
against the flesh; these are opposed to each other, so that you don’t do
what you want." Here,
in verse 7, John said that the blood of Jesus cleanses us from all or every
sin. The word
"cleanses" is translated from the Greek word "katharizo"
which literally means "to clean."
This word was often used about cleaning stains from dirty clothes in
the first-century, Greco-Roman, world. We
should, then, understand this cleansing process that John spoke of as the
process by which the blood of Jesus removes the stain that acts of sin leave
in our lives as seen by God Himself. I
distinguish between the act of sin and the stain that is left in our lives
after a sin is committed. I
believe this verse says that God cleans the stain of sin from our lives.
This verse is not saying that He takes sin out of our lives, in the
sense that we no longer sin. That
process is something altogether different.
In doctrinal terms, that is part of the process of sanctification.
Note
that the verb "cleanses" is a present-tense verb.
John was saying that the blood of Jesus has present-day implications
in the life of the one living in the light of God, who would be a Christian.
Yes, the blood of Jesus was shed in a past, specific, time, but its
effectiveness did not end in the past. For
those living in the light, the blood of Jesus, right now in present time,
cleans the present-day stain that sin leaves in the life of a believer.
It
is at this point that I must remind you of my introduction to this section
of John's letter. I said that
salvation is seen in three verb tenses in the New Testament.
We were saved (Romans 8:24). We
are being saved (2 Corinthians 2:15). We
will be saved (Romans 5:10). With
this in mind, we might be able to understand what John was saying about the
blood of Jesus cleaning the stain of sin from our lives in present time. There
is no doubt that the blood of Jesus was shed one time in human history, and
that was when He died on the cross. His
blood will never be shed again, so here is the question.
What was John writing about when he said that the blood of Jesus that
was shed in past time, cleans in present time the stain our sin leaves?
Jesus
paid the price for all of our sins to be forgiven upon our acceptance of His
offer of forgiveness. He also
paid the price for the stain that sin leaves in our lives to be cleaned upon
our acceptance of His offer of cleansing.
The fact remains, though, that as Christians, we still sin.
That being the case, the blood of Jesus has present-day implications
in that it cleans the stain that sin leaves in our lives.
The past action of Jesus shedding His blood is an effective
present-day action in our lives as long as we live. Allow
me to use the Greek perfect verb tense as an illustration that might help
our understanding in this matter, even though the Greek perfect tense is not
used in this verse. The perfect
Greek verb is a past action that has present-day implications.
The shed blood of Jesus was a past action that has present-day,
cleaning, implications in our lives. As
a matter of fact, it has eternal implications.
Jesus will be forever known as the one whose blood was shed to clean
the stain of sin from our lives. Something
else to think about is this. God
and Jesus live in a spiritual environment that is beyond our present space
and time existence. They exist in what I would call the "eternal
present" where there is no such thing as past, present, and future.
In this sense of the word, forgiveness and cleansing of sins would,
therefore, take place in all three of our verb tenses, in all of our
space-time environment. Our
sins, thus, have been forgiven and the stain of sin removed in the past, are
being forgiven and removed in present time, and, will be forgiven and
removed in future time. Further
to what I have said, when the Bible speaks of the blood of Jesus, it is
speaking of Jesus' death, a death that is somehow seen in Jesus' present-day
form. I suggest, then, that to
be precise, the way in which the blood of Jesus cleanses the stain of sin
from our lives today is in the fact that the once-crucified Jesus, presently
stands before God as the cleaning agent.
Since Christians are in Christ as He stands in the presence of God,
the stain of sin committed today is immediately cleansed.
I
believe there is an eternal aspect to the blood of Jesus.
When we see Jesus face to face, there will be something about Him
that reminds us of His death on the cross.
If you read Revelation 5:6, you will note that Jesus is seen as the
Lamb that has been slaughtered. The
text reads: "Then
I saw one like a slaughtered lamb standing in the midst of the throne and
the four living creatures and among the elders. He
had seven horns and seven eyes, which are the seven spirits of God sent into
all the earth." Some
people equate the cleansing of the stain of sin that is left in one's life
with their concept of sanctification, which they believe is sin being
removed from their lives. I
suggest that the blood of Jesus does not remove sin from our lives.
It removes the stain that sin makes in our lives.
It is the Holy Spirit through the Word of God that begins to remove
sin from our lives. This is what
Paul wrote about in Ephesians 5:25 and 26 where, in relation to the church,
he said that we are made holy and are cleansed by the washing of water of
the Word of God. It is the Holy
Spirit speaking the Word of God into our lives that little-by-little removes
acts of sin from our lives. The
cleansing of the stain of sin from our lives might be seen in picture form
in Revelation 7:9. It reads: "After
this I looked, and there was a vast multitude from every nation, tribe,
people, and language, which no one could number, standing before the throne
and before the Lamb. They were clothed in white
robes with palm branches in their hands." Those
wearing the white robes might be understood figuratively as being cleaned up
from the stain of sin. The
idea of cleansing us from the stain of sin goes back to Old Testament
Judaism, which John would have been familiar with.
Leviticus 16:30 reads: "Atonement
will be made for you on this day to cleanse you, and you will be clean from
all your sins before the LORD." The
above verse is found in what is commonly called the "Law of
Moses." It was known as the
"Torah" by the Jews, and is still known as the "Torah"
today by the Jews. The blood
sacrifices that were stipulated in the Torah were meant to remove the stain
of sin from individual Jews, from the nation of One
thing we know for sure, and it is the message of the letter to the Hebrews
in the New Testament, that all of the blood sacrifices did not permanently
fix the sin problem. Individual
sacrifices deleted the sins that were sacrificed for.
The Day of Atonement deleted the rest, but, since the Day of
Atonement was a yearly event, sins committed after the Day of Atonement
passed were added to the heavenly record.
They had to be dealt with on a yearly basis, but this is not the case
with the blood of Jesus. The
blood of Jesus has removed, once and for all time, all sin from the heavenly
record for the believer.
Note
that 1 John 1:7 states that the blood of Jesus cleanses the stain of all our
sin, not just some sins or past sins. It
seems to me, then, that the stain of all our sins are cleaned up.
None are excluded. If
those holding to the view that they could live a lifestyle of sin and still
have fellowship with God would realize their error, they could find
cleansing from the stain of their sin and fellowship with believers if they
would forsake their heresies and come to the truth, as seen here, in verse
7. Review
John
said that God is pure light. This
is figurative language to denote that God is sinless.
There is no darkness of sin in His existence.
It only makes sense, then, that one cannot live a lifestyle of sin
and have fellowship, or communion, or, share his life in common, with God.
On
the other hand, if one lives in the light of God's sinless existence, then,
he can commune, or, share his life with God.
The word "fellowship" means "to share something in
common with another." Furthermore,
that person can have fellowship, or, share his life with those to whom Jesus
has placed him alongside in the Body of Christ.
John
also stated that a Christian is being continually cleaned from the stain his
present sins would make in his life. A
Christian does sin, and therefore, needs the stain that sin leaves in his
life removed. This speaks about
the present significance of the blood of Jesus: although shed one time in
the past, it has present-day effectiveness, because the present-day, Lamb of
God, stands before God on our behalf.
Present-day
Implications One
character trait of a real Christian, as seen in this section, is that he
shares his life with God and with his fellow believers.
Although he does sin, he does not live a lifestyle of sin.
When he does sin, the blood of Jesus, with its eternal effectiveness,
cleans the stain that sin leaves from his life.
Like the saints seen in the book of Revelation, he is figuratively
seen by God as wearing white robes. In
other words, he is seen by God as having no stain in his life due to his
sin. What
we see here are fundamental truths that need to be burned into our souls.
Without some kind of heart-felt conviction in these matters, there is
no maturity as a Christian. John's
teaching also should make it clear to us that not all who claim to be
Christian are Christian. We,
with Holy-Spirit-led, and Biblically-based understanding, should be able to
distinguish, at least in most cases, who is Christian and who is not
Christian. At
this point many get concerned because they think making this distinction
becomes a matter of judging, and, they define judging as being judgmental,
as understood by our secular culture in which we live.
Allow me to suggest that the Bible does not tell us not to judge.
Jesus,
in John 7:24, told us both to judge and how to judge.
He said our judgment must be based on the truth of the matter and not
merely on the appearance of the matter.
The verse reads: "Stop
judging according to outward appearances; rather judge
according to righteous judgment." Look
at what Jesus said in Matthew 7:16. It
spoke about what John is getting at here. "You’ll
recognize them by their fruit. Are grapes gathered from thorn bushes or figs
from thistles?" Both
John's and Jesus' point is simple. An
apple tree produces apples, not oranges.
A real Christian produces what Paul called the fruit of the Spirit,
in Galatians 5:22 to 26. He does
not produce fruit of the flesh. The
Christian, although he sins from time to time, does not live a lifestyle of
sin like the outright sinner. We,
therefore, at least in many cases, are able to distinguish between the true
and false believer. In part,
this is the message of 1 John.
The
basic problem with the false teaching in John's day arose from mixing Greek
philosophy with Christian theology. This
should never be done. It weakens
and distorts the truth of the gospel. Such
mixture has afflicted the church throughout history and is still with us
today. It seems to be an
ever-present human tendency to mix cultural thinking with Biblical thinking
in order to accommodate non-Christians in the church.
This unholy tendency has messed up the church over the centuries, and
it is happening today among some who believe that the god of Islam is the
same God of Christianity. That
is an illogical impossibility, but it is an attempt to unite Christians with
Muslims. Such an accommodation
destroys the Biblical message and the effectiveness of the church.
We need to be aware of this tendency and refute it.
If John were here with us today, he would do just that, and he would
do it in no uncertain terms. Extra
Notes At
this point I would like to show the difference between the word
"relationship" and the word "fellowship" as it applies
to us and God. Christians have a
legal relationship with God because of the cross of Christ.
Because God is just, sin had to be accounted for.
Somehow, someone had to suffer the penalty for humanity's sin.
If God neglected to punish the sinner for his sin, then God would not
be just. So Jesus, who never
sinned, received the punishment of death on our behalf.
In this way God's justice was completely satisfied.
As a result, God has declared the Christian to be in right standing
with Him. In other words, the
believer has a legal relationship with God.
He is God's son. That is
the status conferred on him. No
sin that he commits can change that relationship.
What sin does in the life of the Christian is this: it disrupts
the fellowship, or communion, that we have with God.
It does not, however, revoke our legal status of being in right
relationship with Him. You
will remember the story Jesus told about the prodigal son.
The son was rebellious and out of touch, out of fellowship, with his
father, but, he was still his father's son.
When the son returned to his father in repentance, fellowship with
his father was restored. The
same is true with us as children of God.
When we sin we are still God's children.
Our sin disrupts the fellowship we have with Him.
When we confess our sin and thank God for his forgiveness that was
granted us upon our initial salvation, our fellowship with Him is restored. Another
issue to consider is this: we must differentiate between justification and
sanctification. Justification is
the process by which we have been declared righteous, or, in right standing
with God. Sanctification is the
process by which righteousness is made real in our lives through our
dedication to Him, which is assisted by the Holy Spirit and the Word of God.
When putting justification and sanctification alongside each other,
you could say it this way: God views us as being in right standing with Him
while at the same time provides the spiritual ability for us to become
righteous through the process of sanctification.
In theological terms, God's declaration of righteousness as a status
on our lives is called "imputed righteousness."
The working out of this righteousness in our lives is called
"imparted righteousness."
(1
John 1:8 - 9) The
Text I
- If we say, "We have no sin," we are deceiving ourselves,
and the truth is not in us. 9 If
we confess our sins, he is faithful and righteous to forgive us our
sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
My
Commentary Verse
8 "If
we say, 'We have no sin,' we are deceiving ourselves, and the truth is
not in us." Verse
8 introduces the second of the three false claims that John was addressing.
In contrast, verse 9 will provide the truth that counteracts this
false claim. Verse
8 follows the same format as verses 6 and 7 with its conditional
"if" clause, which includes the pronoun "we." The
pronoun "we" refers to John and his readers.
That being said, once again, John's use of the pronoun "we"
does not mean his readers embraced this second false claim.
John's use of the pronoun "we" is simply a grammatical
device. I believe he could have
easily said, "if you say" or "if anyone says."
The "if we say" phrase is simply one way in which John was
introducing his propositional statement.
John
made the proposal in this verse by saying that "if we say, 'we have no
sin,' we are deceiving ourselves and the truth is not in us."
Again, John was directing his thoughts about this false claim to his
Christian readers because that is to whom he is writing (1 John 5:13).
John's statement re-affirmed to his Christian readers that the claim
to have no sin is a deceptive claim and the truth is not in anyone who would
make that claim. If the truth,
which John 14:6 states is Jesus Himself, is not in a person, then that
person is not a true Christian. This
also re-affirms to John's Christian readers that Christians do sin.
We will see this more clearly when we come to 1 John 2:1. By
implication, John was also exposing the false Christians who held to the
thinking that a truly spiritual person could not sin.
It was these false teachers, with their false teachings, that were
most likely causing confusion among the believing community.
It was for this reason that John needed to address these false
claims.
Verse
9 "If
we confess our sins, he is faithful and righteous to forgive us our
sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness." Verse
9 provides the truth to the false claim seen in verse 8 that states a
Christian can live without sin in his life.
Verse
9 follows the same format as verses 6, 7 and 8 with its conditional
"if" clause which includes the pronoun "we," meaning,
John was addressing his Christian readers.
"If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us
our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness."
Let us look at this verse more closely.
There are important words in this verse that need clarification.
Our
English word "confess" is translated from the Greek word
"homologeo." This
Greek word means "to say the same thing."
So, when anyone confesses a sin, whether Christian or non-Christian,
he is agreeing with God concerning what constitutes a sin, and in
particular, he is agreeing that what he is confessing is a sin.
We must not define sin in the same manner as the heretics did in
John's day. Their definition of
sin differed from God's definition of sin.
We agree with God's definition of sin, and if we don't, we are
deceived, as John stated. What
John said here, is yet another re-affirmation of the fact that a person who
claims to have no sin, as seen in verse 8, can find forgiveness of his sin
and cleansing from all unrighteousness if he confesses that he actually does
sin. The
words "forgive" and "cleanse" need some clarification.
The Greek word "aphiemi" is translated as
"forgive" throughout our English New Testament.
This word simply means to delete or cancel.
It was often used as an accounting term in the first-century,
Greco-Roman, world. Think, then,
of the word forgive this way. You
have a mortgage at a bank for one hundred thousand dollars.
You inherit one hundred thousand dollars when your father passes
away. You go to the bank and pay
off your debt. At that point the
bank forgives, cancels, or deletes, your debt from its records.
Your mortgage debt now shows a zero balance.
This is the meaning of Biblical forgiveness.
Every
human being is in debt to God. The
debt is our sin. At initial
salvation, when we confess our sin and confess that we are sinners, God
deletes all sin that is associated with us from the heavenly record.
We have a zero balance when it comes to sin.
Our names are then written in the Lamb's Book of Life where there is
no sin associated with our names. God
does this because Jesus paid our debt of sins with His sacrifice on the
cross. Forgiveness is, thus, the
deletion of sin from the heavenly record.
The
word "cleanse" is a word that is seen throughout the Bible.
Whether in New Testament or Old Testament terms, the word
"cleanse" is in reference to cleaning the stain that sin leaves in
a life, a stain that God clearly sees. We
should realize that the word "cleanse" does not suggest that we no
longer sin. We are human and we
will sin. You
might wonder how God, being just, or righteous, as the CSB puts it, forgives
our sin. The death of Jesus on
the cross was in fact an act of justice.
Sin had to be accounted for and punished by God, or else He would not
be just. There is nothing in God
that motivates Him to suspend His punishment for sin forever.
His divine sense of justice needed to be satisfied, and it was
satisfied when Jesus was punished on our behalf; when Jesus experienced the
wrath of God so we would be free from His wrath.
If God did not forgive sin upon the sinner's confession and
repentance, He would not be just, because justice, as it pertains to sin,
has already been served on the cross of Christ.
I
remind you again of what Paul wrote in Colossians 2:13 because it is so
important. He wrote this:
"And
when you were dead in trespasses and in the uncircumcision of your flesh, he
made you alive with him and forgave us all our trespasses." What
Paul said in Colossians 2:13 would apply, even to the heretics in John's
day. If they confessed their
sin, they would be forgiven. Then, Psalm 103:12 would be realized in their
lives. It reads: "As
far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our transgressions
from us." I
have said it before, but it needs to be repeated. When thinking of these
things we should know that when a person becomes a Christian, his name is
written in the Lamb's Book of Life (Revelation 21:27) where there is no sin
associated with his name. Upon
initial salvation, God proclaims a person to be totally righteous, meaning
in right standing with Him. Along
with that, all sins are forgiven. This
is the doctrine of justification that Paul expounded upon in his letter to
the Romans. It is vitally
important for every Christian to know that all of his or her sins have been
deleted from the heavenly record and that God declares the new believer to
be innocent and in right-standing with Himself.
All
of the above being said about the sinner finding forgiveness and being
cleaned from all unrighteousness, many people, if not most people, believe
John was thinking of Christians confessing their sin.
They do not necessarily think John had non-believers in mind. At the
moment, I do not see it that way. I
understand the one confessing sin is the one, in verse 8, who claimed to
have no sin. If John was
thinking of Christians, in verse 9, we have a problem that needs to be
thought through. This
is the problem. If 1 John 1:9 is
directed to Christians, as many think, how can a Christian's present-day sin
be forgiven if it was already forgiven when he accepted Jesus' offer of
forgiveness when he first became a Christian?
Can, or does, God forgive a sin twice?
Did God really forgive past, present, and future sins, when one
became a Christian? If God did
not forgive all sins at one's initial salvation, as I believe He does, then
what happens if we forget to confess a sin?
What happens if we don't want to confess a sin?
Will we lose our salvation at that point?
Can we ever know for sure where we stand with God?
These are questions in need of answers. For
me, these questions are not relevant here as this verse does not refer to
Christians as verse 7did, where we read that the blood of Jesus cleanses the
believer from all sin. If,
by chance, you believe John was thinking about Christians, in verse 9, then
I remind you of the three states of salvation that I wrote about earlier.
In Biblical terms, we were saved (Romans 8:24).
We are being saved (2 Corinthians 2:15), and we will be saved (Romans
5:10). All three verb tenses are
used in the New Testament concerning our salvation.
This tells me that all aspects of salvation are a process from the
day we got saved to the day our salvation finds its completion when we meet
Jesus face-to-face and are changed into His likeness.
If this is truly the case, then, forgiveness might be able to be
considered as a process. That is
to say, we were forgiven, we are being forgiven, and, we will be forgiven.
There
is no doubt in my mind that my name is written in the Lamb's Book of Life,
where there is no sin associated with my name.
I am convinced of that. However,
I, and you also, still sin, even if we do not realize we sin.
When the Holy Spirit places His convicting finger on that sin and we
have realized that it is sin, we do need to confess that sin.
We do need to agree with God that we have sinned, and do so in order
to restore any lost fellowship with God that might have resulted from our
sin. I
believe John addressed the point that Christians do sin in the next section,
when he made comments on the third false claim.
Verse 9, however, was directed to non-believers, or so I believe. Review I
admit that this section of John's letter, if you really study it through, is
difficult to understand. I also
admit that there are different opinions that can be debated.
Whatever the case, I am sure that we can all agree that one who
claims that he does not sin is not practicing the truth of Scripture.
That person, however, can find forgiveness and cleansing from all
unrighteousness if he confesses his sin.
The
verb "confess" in verse 9 is a present subjunctive Greek verb.
This verbal action speaks about a continuous present-time, action.
That is to say, if we confess today, our sins are forgiven.
If we confess tomorrow our sins are forgiven.
Present-day
Implications I
admit that this section is difficult to grasp.
One thing we know for sure is that as Christians, we still sin.
Another thing we know is that if we are true Christians, our names
are written in the Lambs book of Life where there is no sin associated with
our names. One
of our basic problems as Christians these days is that we do believe that we
sin, but, beyond that, we do little about it.
Even though we have been declared by God to be righteous, the Bible
makes it clear that we must grow in righteousness.
Therefore, the character trait of a Christian in this passage states
that even though a Christian sins, and even though his sins are forgiven,
his desire is to live the righteous life that God would expect him to live.
If
you believe that verse 9 refers to Christians, then it would suggest that
when we, as Christians, sin, we cannot ignore that sin.
We must confess it. (1
John 1:10 - 2:2) The
Text 10
- If we say, "We have not sinned," we make him a liar, and his
word is not in us. 2:1
My
little children, I am writing you these things so that you may not sin. But
if anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the Father—Jesus Christ
the righteous one. 2 He
himself is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not only for ours,
but also for those of the whole world. My
Commentary Verse
10 "If
we say, 'We have not sinned,' we make him a liar, and his word is not
in us." Verse
10 presents us with the third of the three false claims that John addressed,
and it is followed by the truth, in chapter 2, verses 1 and 2. Verse
10 follows the same format as verses, 6 and 8 with a conditional
"if" clause and the pronoun "we" that is in reference to
John and his Christian readers. The
context shows that to be true. Also,
1 John 5:13 clearly states that those reading this letter were Christians.
John
said that "If we say, 'We have not sinned,' we make him a liar, and his word is not in
us." The pronoun
"him" refers to God, as is stated in verse 5, of chapter 1. John
proposed that if he and his readers claimed to not sin, they would be
calling God a liar and the word would not be in them.
The "word" John spoke of here might refer to the message of
God being light, as seen back in verse 5, or, it might refer to Jesus
Himself, since Jesus is the Eternal Word, as seen in John 1:1.
Whatever the case, a person who lives the life of sin but claims not
to sin cannot be a Christian and this is the truth that John was
re-affirming to his readers. John
was making this re-affirmation because of the heretics who claimed they did
not sin because their real selves were spiritual beings, and according to
the Greco-Roman influence of the day, spiritual beings could not sin.
Chapter
2, verse 1 "My
little children, I am writing you these things so that you may not sin. But
if anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the Father — Jesus
Christ the righteous one." Chapter
2, verse 1, is the response to the false claim made in chapter 1, verse 10,
but, unlike the other two responses to the false claims, John clearly, with
no uncertainty, states this one is specifically directed to, and meant for,
his Christian readers. There is
some debate whether John had his Christian readers in mind or the false
believers in mind when he addressed the first two false claims.
There is no debate this time. The answer to the false claim was not
directed to the non-believer or to the heretics.
John clearly stated that it was directed to his Christian readers.
What
John said here, in verses 1and 2, is extremely important to realize as a
Christian. It is also important
to remember the content of these two verses because we will have to come
back to them later when we study what appears to be a contradiction over
whether a Christian can or cannot commit a sin.
Verse
1 begins with "my little children."
John was not writing to infants or small children.
He used the words "little children" because he was an
elderly man at this point in his life, and like the apostle Paul, he
considered his readers to be his children in the Lord.
In 1 Timothy 1:2 Paul called Timothy his "son in the
faith." Here, John viewed
those to whom he was writing, as children in the faith.
This is how we should understand John's usage of the words
"little children" in this instance and throughout his letter.
As a matter of fact, as you read John's letter you will see the words
"little children" a number of times.
John
told his Christian readers that he was writing these things, meaning what
was written in this letter, so that they "would not sin."
This letter was meant to be an encouragement to the true Christians
to whom John was writing because he knew that true believers would commit
sin from time to time, especially when these particular believers might have
been tempted to sin because of the false teaching they were hearing from the
heretics. We
should know that Christians, although they do not live in a lifestyle of
sin, do commit sin and it is because of their sinful nature.
The apostle Paul addressed the concept of a sinful nature.
He spent a whole chapter on the subject, as seen in Romans 7.
The
idea that a Christian could sin was in contrast to the false claim that was
made by the heretics, which was that they did not sin.
That is to say, what they considered to be their real self, that was
spiritual, did not sin. Their
physical self did sin, but that was of no concern to them because they did
not consider their physical being to be their real self.
They actually indulged in physical sins, and enjoyed what they
indulged in. John
said two things concerning sin, in this verse, as they applied to the
Christian. The first thing he
said was that he did not want believers to sin.
In saying this, we know that John took sin seriously, and so should
we. The second thing he said was
that he conceded to the fact that Christians do sin from time to time.
Christians sin because they have a sinful nature that temps them to
sin. For this reason, we should
not brush off the sin we commit by saying, "we are only human," as
we often do. Yes, we as
Christians are human and do sin, but we must take sin seriously and deal
with it. The
apostle James concurred with John, and Paul as well, when he said that
people sin because they are tempted by their own human nature to sin.
James 1:14 says this: "But
each person is tempted when he is drawn away and enticed by his own evil
desire." In
other words, we don't need help from the devil to cause us to sin.
We have sufficient ways of sinning on our own, without his help.
Over
the years people have had various definitions of what sin is.
Some suggest that simply disobeying the Ten Commandments is sin.
Sin is much more than that. Jesus
actually redefined the commandments to make sin a matter of the heart and
not simply an outward action, or outward disobedience to a command found in
the Ten Commandments. For
example, the commandment said to not commit adultery.
Jesus said that if you sexually lust after another, you have sinned
by committing adultery in your heart. Many
Christians have not physically committed adultery as an outward action but
many, if not most or even all, have sinned by sexually lusting in their
hearts. I
like how Paul defined sin, in Romans 14:23.
He said that anything we do apart from faith and trust in Jesus is
sin. That covers a wide range of
things. Anything
we do, therefore, in our own human effort in serving Jesus, might well be
classified as sin. That is why I
say that a Sunday school teacher, if he or she leaves Jesus on the sidelines
while he or she is teaching, is sinning.
John,
in 1 John 5:17, defined sin by saying that any wrongdoing or unrighteousness
is an act of sin. That too is a
very broad definition of sin. It
could include many things. Most
of us know sin to be "missing the mark of God's righteous requirements
in our lives" because "missing the mark" is the definition of
the Greek word "hamartia" that is translated as "sin" in
the New Testament.
The
CSB version of the Bible says this, in verse 1.
"But if anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the Father,
Jesus Christ the righteous one." Note
that the word "anyone" is singular while the word "we"
is plural. John said that if a
person commits a sin, we all have an advocate with the Father.
John was admitting that Christians do sin, and again, this was in
contrast to the false claim that was being made by the heretics that stated
a spiritual person does not sin. Beyond
that, John was saying that we have a righteous one, that the CSB version of
the Bible calls an advocate. We
should understand the words "righteous one" in two ways here, as I
have defined in my chapter of word definitions.
Jesus is the Righteous One. Why?
He is the Righteous One because He is both in right standing before
God and while being in right standing, He lives a life that one is expected
to live when being in right standing before God.
He is morally and ethically good.
The Greek word translated into English as "advocate" in the CSB is "parakletos." This word means "one who is called alongside another" and usually for a specific reason. This word was commonly used in a legal sense in the first century, Greco-Roman, world of law. In a court of law, a parakletos was what we call a defence lawyer that represented the accused before a judge. This is, in part, why the CSB version of the Bible, and other versions as well, translate this Greek word as advocate. Allow me to suggest that translating "parakletos" as "advocate" here is a bit interpretive. To be more precise you could say this. "We have one who has been called alongside of the Father." That is a more precise translation. Understanding it this way does not necessarily suggest the One called alongside the Father is an advocate, or, a defence lawyer. Of course, this might depend on one's precise definition of the word "advocate."
If
we understand the word "advocate" to be just a defence lawyer, and
we translate "parakletos" as "advocate," as the CSB and
other translations do, we are incorporating the Greco-Roman, legal sense of
parakletos into the process of translation.
We are taking an additional step beyond what the word
"parakletos" meant and adding one of its many usages in the
process of translation. This
might actually suggest something John never had in mind.
Parakletos
had more than one common usage in the first-century, Greco-Roman, world.
I might, then, ask, "Why translate 'parakletos'
as 'advocate'?
Why not translate it in light of other common usages of the
day?" The
word "advocate" might well be a good translation, but I am not
convinced it is the best translation. It
is a step beyond translating parakletos as being "one who has been
called alongside of another." I
believe translating parakletos as advocate is incorporating one's
interpretation into the process of translation, and, that may or may not be
problematic. I would translate
this part of verse 1 this way. "If
anyone does sin, we have one who has been called alongside the Father, the
Righteous One." If
Jesus is in fact our defence lawyer, and He stands before God, the Universal
Judge, on our behalf, then in context, His representation concerns our
present-day sins. That
might suggest that a sin committed today is advocated by Jesus today.
Some, then, suggest that the present-day sin was not forgiven until
we confessed it in present time. They
were not forgiven at our initial salvation when we accepted God's offer of
forgiveness. They would say that future sins are not yet forgiven.
They will only be forgiven when we confess them in the future.
As I mentioned earlier in my comments of 1 John 1:7, 8 and 9, this
raises a number of questions. For
this reason, the subject of forgiveness of sin has been well debated over
the centuries. Without
getting sidetracked on other New Testament passages, you might want to
consider how James 5:15 fits into this discussion.
It says this: "The
prayer of faith will save the sick person, and the Lord will raise him up;
if he has committed sins, he will be forgiven." Note
that James seems to have suggested that present day sins "will be
forgiven," not that they have "already been forgiven."
I only point this out to say that the concept of forgiveness has been
debated by Bible teachers for years. Whole
denominations have formed over differences concerning forgiveness of sins.
If
you understand the word "advocate" to mean other than a defence
lawyer, meaning thus that Jesus speaks to God on our behalf for other
reasons than our sins, then maybe "advocate" would be a proper
word. To narrow
"advocate" down to simply the forgiveness of present-day sins,
might be too narrow a definition. Jesus
could be situated alongside of God, speaking to Him, on our behalf for many
reasons.
For
me, at least at present, I do not see the word "parakletos" as
referring to Jesus as if He were specifically
a defence lawyer, who asks God to forgive a present-day sin.
I believe verse 2 actually explains how we are to understand
"parakletos", as John used it in this section of his letter.
One
thing we know about Jesus is that He is situated alongside God as one who is
both in right standing before God and also lives as if He were in right
standing before God. He stands
in perfectly right relationship with God His Father, as John said here, in
verse 1. One
role we know that Jesus has, as He is situated alongside of God, is that of
being our Great High Priest. The
following verses, in Hebrews, tell us something about Jesus being our Great
High Priest. They are
Hebrews 5:5, 5:10, 6:20, 7:26, 8:1, 8:3, 9:11, 9:25, and 10:21.
Hebrews 8:1 says this: "Now
the main point of what is being said is this: We have this kind of high
priest, who sat down at the right hand of the
throne of the Majesty in the heavens ..."
The
book of Hebrews clearly states that Jesus is our Great High Priest.
We even saw hints of this in His earthly life when He interceded on
behalf of His followers, in what has often been called His "priestly
prayer" in John 17. I
think, as Jesus is situated alongside God His Father right now, He performs
a number of duties that can be seen in the New Testament.
Some of these duties specifically apply to us while others don't
directly apply to us. Verse
2 "He
himself is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not only for ours,
but also for those of the whole world." Verse
2 in the CSB version of the Bible says that "He
himself is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not only for ours,
but also for those of the whole world."
The
words "He Himself" doubly emphasizes what John is about to say
about Jesus being our "atoning sacrifice."
In other words, the atoning sacrifice that Jesus offered to God on
our behalf was Jesus Himself. This
is in stark contrast to all of the sacrifices, offered in Old Testament
times, which were animals, and not the priests themselves who offered the
animals as the sacrifices. All
this being said, we must understand the meaning of the Greek word that is
translated here as "atoning sacrifice."
I am not entirely convinced that the CSB's translation of the Greek
"hilasmos" as "atoning sacrifice" is the best
translation. I actually prefer
the KJV in this instance. Other
versions of the Bible translate "hilasmos" as either
“propitiation" or "expiation" for this verse.
These two words need considerable thought if we are to begin to
understand what John said in this verse and the previous verse.
They have been important words in Christian doctrine and practice
over the centuries. Before
we begin to understand the Greek word "hilasmos," let me define
propitiation and expiation first. Propitiation
is the process by which God's wrath is removed from one's life.
Expiation is the process by which one's sin is removed from the
heavenly record. In
recent decades there has been much debate over whether John had propitiation
or expiation in mind when he penned the word "hilasmos."
Was John thinking of expiation, as in God removing our sins from his
records, or, was John thinking of propitiation, God's wrath being removed
from our lives? The Revised
Standard Version of the Bible translates "hilasmos" in this verse
as "expiation." The
King James Bible translates "hilasmos" here as
"propitiation." The
CSB version of the Bible, which I have been using in this commentary,
translates "hilasmos" as atoning sacrifice.
So who is right? Each one
of these translations have a somewhat different meaning, although atoning
sacrifice and expiation might be considered similar in some respects.
Expiation
has become more popular in recent times because the idea of a loving God
exhibiting wrath seems to be a contradiction of His very nature.
For this reason, many more liberally-orientated Bible scholars
disregard the idea of propitiation, the removal of God's wrath from one's
life. They prefer expiation, the
removal of sin instead. I
hold to the belief that God does exhibit wrath, and thus, we cannot exclude
the word "propitiation" from Christian theology.
I, therefore, conclude that "hilasmos" should be properly
understood in this verse as the removal of God's wrath from the life of the
believer. This would also fit
the common meaning of "hilasmos" in the first-century,
Greco-Roman, religious, world, a meaning that I believe to be important.
The
concept of propitiation, as seen in the Greek word "hilasmos" had
relevance to the pagan religion of the first-century, Greco-Roman, world.
It was not a foreign concept in John's day.
Pagans believed that they had to do something to appease the gods; to
remove their gods’ anger from their lives in order to find favour with the
gods. This concept is not the
Biblical concept of propitiation that is seen in the New Testament.
The apostle Paul, in Ephesians 2:8 and 9, made it clear that we can
do absolutely nothing to remove God's wrath from our lives in order to live
in His favour. The text reads: "For
you are saved by grace through faith, and this is not from yourselves; it is
God’s gift — not from works, so that no one can
boast." Removing
God's wrath from our lives was God's job, not ours.
God Himself, became human in the form of our Lord Jesus Christ, and
as John said here, "Jesus Himself is our atoning sacrifice," or as
I prefer, "our propitiation," the One who has removed the wrath of
God from the believer's life so the believer can live in God's good grace
and constant favour. It was
Jesus who paid the price to have God's blessing of salvation come our way
once God's wrath was removed from our lives.
We can do nothing about that but embrace what Jesus has done for us.
Those
who reject the process by which God's wrath is removed from their lives
remain under the wrath of God (John 3:36) and will find their place in the John
3:36 reads: "The
one who believes in the Son has eternal life, but the one who rejects the
Son will not see life; instead, the wrath of God remains on him." Jesus
made it clear, as seen in the above verse.
God's wrath still remains on the one who rejects His sacrifice.
More liberal theologians are wrong to disregard the concept of
propitiation. God's wrath still
remains on the unbeliever until such time as he repents, hands his life over
to Jesus in faith, and, receives the Holy Spirit into his life. At
this point we need to note the verb tense of the CSB's phrase "is an
atoning sacrifice." It is
in the present tense, not the past tense.
That means right now, in present time, Jesus is our
"hilasmos," or, our "propitiation."
He is the sacrifice that has removed God's wrath from the lives of
all believers. We often think of
Jesus as being our propitiation in the past tense when He died on the cross,
and that He was, but, He is also our propitiation right now as He sits at
God's right hand. He is our
present-day propitiation because that is who He has always been.
At
the moment, my understanding of verse 2 is this.
Jesus is situated at God's right hand as one who redirects God's
wrath from the life of the believer when he sins.
Yes, His sacrifice was a once-and-for-all time sacrifice as Hebrews
9:12 states. His sacrifice will
never be made again. Hebrews
9:12 says this: "He
entered the most holy place once for all time, not by the blood of goats and
calves, but by his own blood, having obtained eternal redemption." However,
even though Jesus' sacrifice was a one- time sacrifice, Jesus Himself, is
presently seen by God as being that sacrifice, or in this specific case, our
propitiation. His very presence
redirects any wrath that might rise within God because of the sin we as
Christians still commit. I
believe I can safely say, that even though all of our sins have been deleted
from God's records, God must not be very happy when we do sin.
It is Jesus, our present-day propitiation, who makes God, if I can
say it this way, happy with us, despite our sin.
The
idea that Jesus is our present-day propitiation is one of the themes of the
book of Hebrews. When the author
of Hebrews speaks of Jesus as being our eternal High Priest (Hebrews 6:20),
this suggests an ongoing, present-day, ministry of Jesus.
In thinking of the cross of Christ, it is commonly understood by
Evangelical Christians, that it is a finished but continuing work.
If
you read Revelation, chapter 5, you will note that the apostle John was
quite upset because he thought there was no one in all of the universe that
could open the seven-sealed scroll. He
was told by one of the twenty-four elders that the Lion of the Tribe of
Judah was the only one who could open the seven-sealed scroll.
John turned around, expecting to see a lion-type figure, but he did
not see what he expected. Instead,
he saw Jesus, the slaughtered Lamb. That
is who, at least in one sense of the word, Jesus is right now.
He is the slaughtered Lamb. Yes,
He was slaughtered in past time, but, He is right now, in present time, seen
as slaughtered. Let
me explain this in human terms. If
a news program interviews a past president of the Let
me sum up what John said, here in verses 1 and 2, especially in relation to
the Greek words "parakletos" and "hilasmos."
John said that the Christian does sin, and, when he does sin, he has
one who has been called alongside of God as one who withholds God's wrath
from the Christian who sins. I
admit, these two verses are complicated and there are other interpretations.
All that I can say is that we are all learning, and, we will all
continue to learn. One
thing to note about the cross of Christ is that it was a multifaceted event.
Many things took place while Jesus was on the cross.
He paid the price to have our sins forgiven.
He redirected God's wrath from the life of the believer. He paved the
way for reconciliation, justification, God's declaration of righteousness on
our lives, and the reception of the Holy Spirit in our lives as well.
John
went on to say, in verse 2, that Jesus' atoning sacrifice, or act of
propitiation, was for all of humanity. It
was for the people of the whole world. This
presents us with a long-standing debate.
John Calvin, a sixteenth-century reformer, (born 1509 - died 1564)
believed that Jesus died for only those He had chosen to be saved long
before the world was created. That
is not my opinion and it does not seem to be John's opinion here.
John 3:16 states that God so loved the world that whosoever believes
will be saved. Calvinism is thus
in opposition to all of the "whosoever believes will be saved"
verses, and there are many. 1
John 2:2 is one of many verses that state the Jesus is the 'hilasmos"
for all humanity, not just the chosen few, and for that we should all be
more than thankful. It is for
that reason you are saved today, if indeed you have accepted Jesus' offer of
salvation and forgiveness.
Review John
told us that Christians do sin and when we do sin we have the Righteous One,
who is situated alongside God the Father as one who removes the wrath of God
from those who accept His salvation. This
removal of wrath takes place at initial salvation, and according to the verb
tense that John used, is a continuous action.
Present-day
Implications The
character trait of a true Christian as seen in this portion of John's letter
is that he is one who knows he sins but also knows that Jesus acts on our
behalf, who has, does, and will, deflect all wrath from our lives.
The apostle Paul made it clear that the Christian will not suffer
wrath. In 1 Thessalonians 1:10
he said this: "And
to wait for his Son from heaven, whom he raised from the dead, even
Jesus, which delivered us from the wrath to
come." In
1 Thessalonians 5:10 Paul said this: "For
God did not appoint us to wrath, but to obtain salvation through our Lord
Jesus Christ," As
Christians, the release from God's wrath, both now and in the future, should
cause us to be very thankful for Jesus being our "Hilasmos." (1
John 2:3 - 6) The
Text 3
- This is how we know that we know him: if we keep his commands.
4 The one who
says, "I have come to know him," and yet doesn’t keep his
commands, is a liar, and the truth is not in him. 5 But whoever
keeps his word, truly in him the love of God is made complete.
This is how we know we are in him: 6 The
one who says he remains in him should walk just as he walked. My
Commentary Verse
3 "This
is how we know that we know him: if we keep his commands."
Verse
3 begins with these words: "This
is how we know that we know Him." There
might well have been some confusion in the minds of John's Christian readers
concerning whether they really knew God as they claimed.
This might have been due to the heresies that were being expounded by
the false believers. When people
hear things over and over again, even if it is a false rumour, they often
wonder if what they hear might really be true.
This is certainly the situation in our social-media world these days.
It would not surprise me that John's readers were questioning the
validity of their faith. In
this verse, John provided one way in which a Christian really knows he is a
true believer. John said that
there is an obedience for New Testament Christians.
It is not obedience to law, in particular, the Law of Moses that is
found in the Old Testament. It
is an obedience to Jesus because Jesus has replaced the Law of Moses in New
Testament times. You can see
that in Romans 10:4 where Paul said that Jesus is the end, or the
completion, of the Law. In
context, the law Paul had in mind was the Law of Moses.
The text reads: "For
Christ is the end [the goal or the completion] of the law for righteousness
to everyone who believes." Paul
said that if anyone wants to maintain a right standing before God, which is
the righteousness he was writing about in Romans 10:4, then that right
standing comes through our Lord Jesus Christ, not through any law, including
the Law of Moses as seen in the Old Testament.
For
the Christian, obedience to the Law of Moses has been replaced with
obedience to Jesus. If that is
the case, which it is, obedience to man-made Christian or church laws for
maintaining one's salvation is clearly unbiblical.
Note,
in verse 1 John 2:3, that the word "know" is used twice in one
sentence. The first
"know" is in the present tense.
This means that when John penned this letter his readers knew they
were true Christians, or, knew they were in Him.
The same is true with us. Our
present-day knowing that we are indeed Christians is based on the second
"know" in this verse. This
"know" is a perfect tense Greek verb.
A perfect tense Greek verb is a past action that has implications in
present time. The past action
John had in mind would have been the time when his readers first began to
know Jesus when they gave their lives to Him.
That past action of knowing has present-day implications in that the
believers still knew that they were in Christ.
The same is true for us today. This
was another re-affirmation to John's readers.
One way they knew they were in Christ was because of their obedience
to their Lord. The
words "in Him" mean the same as the words "in Christ."
Paul often used the phrase "in Christ" to denote that
someone was a true Christian. This
is how I understand the words "in Christ".
Jesus represents us before the Father right now.
He represented us while on the cross.
He lived the righteous life on our behalf.
His whole earthly life, and, His
present existence, is one of standing before God as our representative.
So, when God sees Jesus, our representative, in one sense of the
word, He sees us, those He is representing.
A simplistic, Sunday-school version, way of saying this is that when
God the Father looks at Jesus His Son, He sees the believer inside of Jesus,
or, He sees the believer "in Christ."
Verse
4 "The
one who says, 'I have come to know him,' and yet doesn’t keep his
commands, is a liar, and the truth is not in him." Verse
4 speaks about the false Christian belief that you can know God without
obeying Jesus. Those holding to
this doctrine would have said that they knew Jesus when in fact they did not
know Him. They clearly did not
know Jesus because they did not keep His commands.
That is simple logic. John
called them liars, as he also did back in chapter 1.
They were liars because of their false claim to know Jesus. Furthermore,
they did not even believe in the real Jesus.
How, then, could they obey Him? Obedience
to Jesus is the mark of a true Christian as Jesus Himself said, in John
14:15. The text reads: "If
you love me, you will keep my commands." I
often hear Christians say that they love Jesus.
Well, as they say, "the proof to that statement is in the
pudding." If a believer
says he loves Jesus, his obedience to Jesus will prove that to be true.
To the degree, then, that one obeys Jesus is the degree to which he
knows or loves Jesus. John
had no problem calling false believers who claimed to be believers, liars.
They, with their heresies, were splitting God's community apart.
It was for this reason that John was so upset with them.
As bad as it is to embrace false beliefs, it is worse to teach them
to others so as to split the church in half as it did in John's day.
In
today's Christian environment John would be accused of being judgmental.
What we should realize, that most do not realize these days, is Jesus
actually told us to judge, in John 7:24.
Yes, He did put some restrictions on our judging.
He told us not to judge by appearance but judge righteously.
John 7:24 says this: "Stop
judging according to outward appearances; rather judge according to
righteous judgment." Many
people believe that Jesus told us not to judge because of what He taught, as
seen in Matthew 7:1. He said
this: "Do
not judge, so that you won’t be judged." In
context, Jesus was not forbidding us to judge.
He was simply telling us that the way we judge others will be the way
in which others judge us in return. There
is nothing difficult to figure out about that.
It is just natural for us to treat others as they treat us.
If you judge others by appearance only, you should expect that others
will judge you by appearance only. It
is for this reason Jesus told His disciples, and that includes Christians
today, to judge righteously, in John 7:24.
In this way, if we are to be judged in return, righteous judgment
will come our way. Understanding
the facts of the matter, and how God would view the facts of the matter, is
the basis for Biblical judging.
Verse
5 "But
whoever keeps his word, truly in him the love of God is made complete.
This is how we know we are in him:" We
read, in verse 5, that John said that anyone who lives a life of obedience
to Jesus, the love of God is made complete in him.
Instead of the word "complete" some translations use the
word "perfect," which in my opinion, does not accurately represent
what the Greek text says. The
CSB uses the word "complete."
Something that is complete does not necessarily mean it is perfect. The
Greek word "teleioo" is translated as "complete" in the
CSB and "perfect" in the KJV.
The idea here is that God's love, which was demonstrated in the life
of Jesus, has found its completion, or intended goal, in the lives of the
true believers. The
Greek verb translated as "made complete" is a perfect passive
Greek verb. A perfect verb is an
action that has been completed in the past but has present-day implications.
This is why I say that the love of God that was demonstrated in the
life of Jesus in past time is meant to find its completion in the lives of
Christians in present time. If,
therefore, you obey Jesus and allow His love to be demonstrated in your
life, then His love finds its completion in you, and that is one further
proof that you really know Jesus and are a real Christian.
Verse
6 "The
one who says he remains in him should walk just as he walked." In
light of the false Christians who claimed to know Jesus but did not, John
said, in verse 6, that if you claim to remain, or live, in Jesus, then you
should "walk," or live a lifestyle, like Jesus lived.
That is to say, as Jesus demonstrated selfless love
("agape" in Greek), so the Christian should exhibit selfless love
in like manner. The
word "remains" in this verse is important and at the same time has
caused much debate over the centuries. The
debate concerning the word "remains" is over whether one can lose
his salvation. The word
"remains" suggests to some that one might not always remain in
Jesus and would then lose his salvation.
I will comment on this further when I comment on 1 John 2:24.
It is one of those difficult subjects to work through when studying,
not only 1 John, but the rest of the Bible.
Review
True
Christians do not need to live in doubt about their salvation.
They can know that they know that they are in right standing with
God. One way of knowing this is
by their obedience to Him. Obedience
is one test of genuine faith. Those
who claim to know God but fail to obey Him in the way the Bible teaches are
liars. This sounds pretty harsh,
but John, the loving pastor, had no problem being harsh when the truth of
God was being misrepresented. The
gospel accounts also show Jesus being very harsh on those of the religious
establishment of the day. They
claimed to know and follow God, but according to Jesus, they neither knew
God nor obeyed Him.
We
must realize that John was not addressing what I call secondary Biblical
doctrines in his letter. For
example, he was not addressing the mode of water baptism or end-time
theology. He was addressing the
very foundational doctrines of who Jesus is and what constitutes sin.
We can be harsh towards those holding to fundamental heresies and
claim to be Christian. For those
who simply disagree with us on secondary issues, we cannot be so harsh.
We must dialogue within the framework of Christian unity and
sacrificial, agape-style, love that John has been writing about throughout
his letter.
Present-day
Implications
As
true Christians we not only know about Jesus, we know Him on a personal
basis, or at least we are in the process of getting to know Him personally.
This is vital to our lives as Christians.
Without developing our personal relationship with Jesus, there is no
growth or maturity as a Christian. This
takes being available for Him and spending time with Him, in prayer, in
Bible study, and in fellowship with those who Jesus has called you alongside
in Christian community. Knowing
Jesus in a personal sense is also important to the gospel message we preach.
Far too often these days the Christian gospel being preached is
knowing about the historic Jesus and not knowing Him personally.
Developing a personal relationship with Jesus is what the Knowing
about Jesus saves no one. I fear
that the Another
thing we learn from this section of 1 John is that a true believer obeys
Jesus, although at times may struggle with obedience. That
being said, our heart's desire is to live a life of obedience, something the
non-believer has no desire to do. We
do need to take our sin and our disobedience seriously, but we should never
get so bent out of shape over our failures that we condemn ourselves.
There is no condemnation for the believer, according to what Paul
stated, in Romans 8:1 and 2. He
made it clear by saying this:
"Therefore,
there is now no condemnation for those in Christ Jesus, because the law of
the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and
death." Paul
made that statement right after he wrote a whole chapter on his battle with
his sinful nature, the nature that caused him to sin.
Even with your sinful nature, there is no need to think you are
condemned. There is, however,
discipline that comes our way from God, as seen in Hebrews 12:7.
That verse reads: "Endure
suffering as discipline: God is dealing with you as sons. For what son is
there that a father does not discipline?" Being
disciplined by God our Father should never be associated with the idea that
God is condemning you. It should
be associated with being children of our heavenly Father.
All good fathers discipline their children.
We
should also know that the word discipline in New Testament thinking means
more than punishment; more than a spanking, so to speak.
Discipline is all about training, teaching, and instructing, in the
ways of the Lord. Discipline is
part of the Christian life. Our
problem these days is that we do not think in terms of being disciplined by
God, our Father. We do not know
what it looks like and when it comes our way, we do not know we are being
disciplined, and thus, we do not learn what we are expected to learn.
This results in a lack of Christian maturity that is clearly seen
throughout the western-world church.
The
characteristic of a true Christian as seen in this section of 1 John is that
a Christian, even though he will disobey Jesus at times, will live a life of
obedience. If that is you, then
that is one proof you are a true Christian. For
those Christians who claim to love Jesus, they should be reminded that if
they indeed love Jesus, they will obey Him, as seen in John 14:15.
It is for this reason I maintain that the degree to which one obeys
Jesus is the degree to which he really loves Jesus.
We
should also be reminded that obedience to Jesus has replaced obedience to
the Law of Moses, and really, to any man-made ecclesiastical law that is
meant to maintain our salvation. This
is important to understand since much of Evangelical Christianity teaches
its adherents to obey certain laws within the Law of Moses in order to be a
good Christian, or, in order to maintain one's salvation.
The tithing laws and the Sabbath laws are two such examples.
The problem is that most of the rest of the six hundred and thirteen
commands in the Law of Moses are ignored by us.
The Law of Moses does not permit us to obey some of its laws and
disregard the rest. It is all or
nothing. If
you are a New Testament believer, and that is the only kind of true believer
there is, you obey Jesus. The
subject about how a Christian should relate to the Law of Moses is widely
misunderstood. It is a topic
that is too large to address here. I
have addressed this issue in my book entitled "Should I Tithe?"
(1
John 2:7 - 11) The
Text 7
- Dear friends, I am not writing you a new command but an old command
that you have had from the beginning. The
old command is the word you have heard. 8 Yet
I am writing you a new command, which is true in him and in you, because the
darkness is passing away and the true light is already shining.
9 The
one who says he is in the light but hates his brother or sister is in
the darkness until now. 10 The
one who loves his brother or sister remains in the light, and there is
no cause for stumbling in him. 11 But
the one who hates his brother or sister is in the darkness, walks in
the darkness, and doesn’t know where he’s going, because the
darkness has blinded his eyes. My
Commentary Verse
7 "Dear
friends, I am not writing you a new command but an old command that you
have had from the beginning. The
old command is the word you have heard." The
word "friends" in the phrase "dear friends" is
translated from the Greek word "agapetos" which some of you might
recognize. One of the most
well-known Greek New Testament words in recent decades is the Greek word
"agape." This word is
translated as "love" in the English New Testament.
The word "agape" went out of use in the first-century,
Greco-Roman, world, probably because it meant "selfless or sacrificial
love." People preferred
other Greek words to express love, such as "philos" that meant
"brotherly or reciprocal love."
The Greek word "ludus" meant playful love.
The Greek word "pragma" meant "longstanding love.
The Greek word "philautia" meant "love of self."
Then there was "eros." That
Greek word meant erotic or sexual love.
No matter the culture or the times, "eros" is always
popular. Because
the word "agape" went out of common use, Christians adopted the
word to denote God's selfless love. "Agapetos,"
as seen here, in verse 7, finds its roots in "agape."
For this reason some versions of the Bible translate
"agapetos" as "dearly beloved" instead of "dear
friends," as seen here in the CSB version of the New Testament.
I prefer the words "dearly beloved" because they better
reflect the Greek word "agapetos."
The difficulty with the words "dearly beloved" is that they
are becoming outdated or else have a different meaning these days.
In
verse 7, John said that he was not writing his readers a new command but an
"old command." The two
phrases "which you have heard from the beginning" and "the
old command is the word you have heard" helps us understand what
command John was writing about. As
seen in 1 John 1:1, the words "in the beginning" refer back to the
days when Jesus was on earth. This
means that the "old command" heard from the beginning refers to
the gospel message that John and others preached to them.
The gospel message would have included the command that Jesus gave
His original followers to love one another, as seen in John 13:34. "I
give you a new command: Love one
another. Just
as I have loved you, you are also to love one
another." The
new command that Jesus spoke to His disciples while He was on earth became
the old command some sixty plus years later when John penned this letter.
The
new command spoken by Jesus was not exactly new when He spoke it either.
It was new in the sense that it had new applications and that He, not
the Law of Moses, spoke it. This
new command could be found in the old commands of the Law of Moses as well.
Deuteronomy 6:5 says this: "Love
the LORD your God with all your heart, with all
your soul, and with all your strength." Leviticus
19:18 says this: "Do
not take revenge or bear a grudge against members of your community, but
love your neighbor as yourself; I am the LORD." You
could, thus, say that the new command that Jesus spoke was not exactly new,
but it might well have been new in the sense that Jesus' new command summed
up, or you could say, replaced, all of the six hundred and thirteen laws
found in the Law of Moses. In
this sense of the word it was a new command to His audience.
It was a command that was probably lost in all of the rabbinical laws
that were meant to interpret the Law of Moses.
I believe this is what Jesus meant, in Matthew 22:37 through 39.
The text reads: "He
[Jesus] said to him, 'Love
the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your
mind. This is
the greatest and most important command.
The second is like it: Love
your neighbor as yourself.'" Verse
8 "Yet
I am writing you a new command, which is true in him and in you, because the
darkness is passing away and the true light is already
shining." In
verse 7, John said that he was not writing a new command but an old command.
Here, in verse 8, he said he was writing a new command.
So what was it? Was it a
new command or an old command? There
have been many answers to these questions. Jesus
called it a new command even though the new command had its roots in the old
commands. John might well have
been doing the same thing. When
these believers first heard the message of salvation, they would have heard
the new command that Jesus spoke decades earlier.
By then it was an old command but new to John's readers.
Now, after a messy church split prompted by the heretics and their
heresies, the old command to love one another became new again.
That is to say, the old command to love the brotherhood of believers
had to be revisited and reinforced in the lives of the believers after a
nasty church split.
The
rest of verse 8 may be confusing to some.
John said that the "darkness is passing" while "light
is already shining." It is
easy to understand that the light of the gospel was already shining.
We know from 1 John 1:5 that God Himself is the light.
The light was already shining in the lives of the true believers and
the message they proclaimed to the culture in which they lived.
It could be seen in the love they had for one another.
How
can we understand John's point about the darkness passing?
The verb "is passing" is a present tense Greek verb.
John did not say the darkness had already passed or that it will pass
at some future date. He said the
darkness, as he was writing these words, was in the process of passing away.
There has been much speculation concerning just what John was getting
at here. I am not convinced that
we actually know what he had in mind when he penned these words.
If the darkness was passing away near the end of the first-century,
it is taking a very long time to completely pass away.
As a matter of fact, history shows us that the darkness, especially
as it relates to the church and the lives of Christians, got worse after
John wrote his letter. Here
is my speculative reasoning for why John said that the darkness was passing
away. John could have been
speaking of the darkness that was seen in the heresies that split the church
in half. It might well have been
that the split was complete and the unity of the believers was returning as
seen in the love the true believers had for one another.
I suggest, and it is a suggestion, that the context might give some
kind of credibility to my speculation, but again, it is pure speculation and
I could be wrong. Verse
9 "The
one who says he is in the light but hates his brother or sister is in
the darkness until now."
In
verse 9 the words "who hates" are a present Greek participle.
That means that the word "hates" describes the person
spoken of in this verse, not simply his action of hating.
It speaks about who he is as a person.
You can, thus, understand that those to whom John was referring were
haters. They did not just hate
from time to time. Hating was
inherent in who they were. These
haters lived a lifestyle of hating. They
were the false believers, the heretics that had split the Christian
community in half. Verse
10 "The
one who loves his brother or sister remains in the light, and there is
no cause for stumbling in him." Verse
10 tells us that the "one who loves his brother remains in the
light." The words "who
loves" in our English text is a verb.
In the Greek text the words "who loves" is a present
participle. The participle
"loves" says something about those to whom John was referring.
The participle implies that John's readers were lovers, and
specifically, lovers of the brotherhood of believers.
The emphasis here is not on the acts of love, but on the person, who
by his new nature in Christ, is a lover.
I suggest that there is a difference between doing loving acts and
being a full-time lover of people. The
Greek word "meno," which is translated as "remains" in
the CSB, or "abides," in some other translations, means "to
abide, to dwell, or to live." This
tells me that the full-time lover of his brothers and sisters in Christ is
one who does not just frequent the light of God from time to time but
actually lives in the light of God and the light of God lives in him.
Remember, the word "light" in Biblical terms refers to
qualities such as goodness, righteousness, or something similar.
This implies that the full-fledged lover is always doing good things
for his brothers and sisters in Christ.
He is in contrast to the one who lives in darkness, as seen in the
previous verse, and who had left fellowship with those in the church
community. The
Greek verb "meno" is a present active indicative Greek verb.
This means that the full-time lover of the Christian brotherhood
lives in the light of God love right now in present time, and, that is a
certainty. It can be seen in his
active acts of love by all who cross his path.
The
Greek word "skandalon" in its original usage was a trap to catch
animals. This word is often
translated as "stumble" in many versions of the New Testament.
So the idea here is that the one who is a lover of his brothers and
sisters in Christ does nothing to cause his brothers and sisters to fall
into a trap that might snare them on their walk of faith.
The opposite would be true. He
does all he can to help those with whom Jesus has placed him alongside in
the Body of Christ.
Verse
11 "But
the one who hates his brother or sister is in the darkness, walks in
the darkness, and doesn’t know where he’s going, because the
darkness has blinded his eyes." Verse
11 reverts back to referring to the person who walks, lives, and spends his
life, in the evil of darkness. John
said that he is a hater of the brotherhood.
Again, this is because the word "hate" here is a present
Greek participle, as was the case with the word "love" in the last
verse. One who lives a life of
hatred is blind to where he needs to go in life.
He is blind to the real and important eternal issues of life because
his life of hatred consumes him and prevents him from living as he should
live. He is simply lost, and one
who is so lost is not saved. It
is common knowledge that one who is caught up in a life of negative
emotions, like hatred, does a real disservice, not just to those around him,
but to himself. Such negativism
will eat that person up alive, so to speak.
It is like a cancer that attacks the soul.
This is not just something that I say as a Christian.
It is an established medical concept, something that is clearly seen.
Out-of-control negativism affects every aspect of one's life.
It destroys the quality of life that we all seek.
It hurts one's decision-making, blurs his conscience, devastates
relationships, and, sets him on a path of life that is far from satisfying. Review
Throughout
this letter one thing John has been doing is presenting to his readers the
character qualities of a true Christian.
In this section, he describes the true believer as one who loves his
brothers and sisters in Christ because by his new nature in Christ, he is a
lover. One may struggle with
such love at times but it is his desire to express sacrificial love to those
God places before him at any given time.
On the other end of the spectrum, the hater walks around in darkness.
He is overcome with his hatred that effects his daily activities of
life. Present-day
Applications John
presents us with another character quality of a true Christian.
He or she is one who lives in the light of God's love, which results
in him or her being a lover of those whom Jesus has placed him or her
alongside in the Body of Christ. If,
therefore, you are a true believer, you are one who loves the Christian
brotherhood. That is your new
nature in Christ. This does not
mean you love perfectly. You do,
however, have the heart-felt desire to be a lover and it is expressed in
your life in many ways. Those
who are haters, and you probably know some, just do not walk in the light of
God's love. As Jesus said,
"you know them by their fruit" (Matthew 12:33).
Lovers love. Haters hate.
It is that simple. Sacrificial
love, as expressed by the Greek word "agape," is not always seen
in that which we call church. Over
the centuries it has been sadly lacking.
One prime example of this is seen in the Reformation Movement of the
sixteenth century. The Reformers
broke away from an apostate Catholicism that actually killed people for
their disobedience to church law, church authorities, and church doctrine.
For example, many were killed over disagreements concerning the
doctrine of the Trinity. You
would think that the reformers would have learned a lesson from such brutal
lack of love, but they didn't. Many
reformers were executed by fellow reformers because of doctrinal
differences. That definitely was
not agape, sacrificial love.
Over
the years the church has split over countless nasty arguments that have
clearly demonstrated the lack of the love John wrote about in this letter.
It is one thing to separate over such basic theological issues that
John addressed here, but that is seldom the case in our western-world
church. We often split up a
local congregation over non-important issues, like style of music and other
such things. If Jesus has placed
you alongside others in His New Testament body, then leaving those with whom
He has placed you is a serious matter and must be well thought out.
In
Jesus' prayer found in John 17, He prayed to His Father that His followers
would be one, even as He and His Father are one.
John 17:21 says this: "May
they all be one, as you, Father,
are in me and I am in you. May
they also be in us, so that the world may believe you sent me." I
think we should take Jesus' words seriously.
The premise of unity in the church is seen through the lens of agape,
that is, sacrificial love. (1
John 2:12 - 14) The
Text 12
- I am writing to you, little children, My
Commentary Verse
12 "I
am writing to you, little children, John's
intent in writing this part of his letter seems to have been two-fold.
It was meant to be both an encouragement and a re-affirmation of the
faith of those to whom he was writing. There
are two reasons for this encouragement and re-affirmation.
The first reason stems from the fact that the heretics and their
heretical teaching had split the church in half, which most likely caused
some doubt, insecurity, and confusion in the minds of the believers.
The second reason is due to what John has already written in this
letter. For example, in chapter
1, verse 6, He said that if one claimed to have fellowship with God yet
lived in darkness, that one lied and did not know the truth.
He made similar strong statements in chapter 1, verse 8, chapter 2,
verse 1 and 4. Just in case
these statements might have caused some doubts in the minds of his readers
concerning their salvation, John most likely felt it necessary to re-affirm
their good standing before God in this portion of his letter.
To be clear, John was not chastising those to whom he was writing.
He was encouraging them.
In
verse 12, we see the words "little children" as we have seen
before in John's letter, but this time the words "little children"
may mean something different than they meant in earlier verses.
The words "little children" may refer to John's readers in
general, as we saw in verse 1, of chapter 2.
However, many Bible teachers believe that the words "little
children" in this instance refers to young, or, newly-reborn,
Christians. They think this
because John also refers to fathers and young men.
They think that John was addressing people's maturity level in the
Lord, in this verse and in the next verse.
On the other hand, maybe John was directing his thoughts, in this
verse, to young-in-age children. There
have been many attempts to get into John's mind concerning the words
"little children," "fathers," and "young men."
It is difficult to read John's mind on this matter, and I really do
not think it makes much of a difference to the main points that he was
making. The
Greek verb tense for "have been forgiven" is important.
"Have been forgiven" is a Greek perfect passive indicative
verb. The perfect tense means
that at one specific time in the past, the sins of those to whom John was
writing had been forgiven. The
past action of forgiveness, then, has important present-day implications to
those to whom John was writing. Indicative
means that this forgiveness of sins was, and still is, a certainty.
There should be no doubt in one's mind that his sins have been
forgiven, although in the minds of some of John's readers, they may have had
some doubts due to their present circumstances.
Passive means that the process of forgiveness has nothing to do with
the one being forgiven. It has
everything to do with the One, Jesus, who forgave the sins.
Again, this tells Christians that all, not just some, of their sins
have already been forgiven. What
I have been saying, and Colossians 2:13 also tells us, is that all sins,
past, present, and future sins, have been deleted from the heavenly record.
This should bring an assurance to all true Christians concerning
forgiveness and their present standing before God, and that applied also to
those to whom John was writing. The
Greek word translated as "forgive" in the New Testament is "apheimi."
This was an accounting term in the first-century, Greco-Roman, world.
In terms of sin, this means that all sins associated with the sinner
who has been forgiven have been deleted from God's record-book, whatever
that record-book may look like. The
sinner who has repented, handed his life over to Jesus, and received the
Holy Spirit into his life, has no sin associated with his name in the
heavenly record. This fact is
fundamental to the Christian life and if misunderstood will negatively
affect how a Christian lives. The
Greek conjunction "hoti" that is translated as "since"
in the CSB and "because" in other translations in this verse is
best thought of in terms of being a declarative statement and not a
statement of cause and effect. This
means that this is a declaration that the sins of John's readers have been
definitely been forgiven.
The
words "His name" need some thought.
Think of "His name" this way.
Let us say I work for Jim's Woodworking Services.
When I go out on a woodworking job, I am not representing myself.
I am representing Jim's Woodworking Services, and thus, I need to
work as Jim wants me to work. His
good name, not my good name, is under scrutiny when I work.
I am not only working for a company name.
I am working for the company that the name represents.
I must, then, work as Jim and those in authority in the company want
me to work.
When
it comes to Jesus, the name of Jesus means not just His name, but all that
His name represents. John was
not just talking about Jesus' earthly name here.
He was talking about all of whom Jesus is.
We are forgiven, then, on account of all who Jesus is and what He has
done, including what He did on the cross.
Remember, 1 John 2:2 states that right now in present time Jesus is
situated alongside of God as the slaughtered Lamb of God that John 1:29 says
takes away the sin of the world. Jesus
not only offered Himself as a sacrifice in the past, His present-day
appearance as the slaughtered Lamb who is situated alongside of God speaks
about His very nature or essence of being one who sacrifices Himself on our
behalf.
We
should never understand "the name of Jesus" to be some simple
phrase that we attach to the end of a prayer.
When Scripture speaks of the name of Jesus it is in reference to all
who Jesus is and ever will be.
Verse
13 "I
am writing to you, fathers, because you have come to know the one who is
from the beginning. I am writing
to you, young men, because you have conquered the evil one." Note
the conjunction "because" in this verse.
As in the last verse "because" is translated from the Greek
word "hoti," but, in the last verse the CSB translated
"hoti" as "since." Why
the difference in translation I do not know, but scholars suggest that the
Greek word "hoti" should be understood as being declarative.
That means that John's statement is a positive declaration that these
fathers did know God, even if they had doubts about their knowing from time
to time.
The
verb "you have come to know" is a perfect indicative Greek verb.
Perfect means that these fathers came to know Jesus at one specific
time in the past and still knew Him when John wrote this letter.
Indicative means that this knowing was a certainty, despite some
uncertainty that some of John's readers might have had when he wrote this
letter. Active means that these
fathers were the ones who knew. According
to what John said, here, you can see how some Bible teachers think that John
had spiritually-mature people in mind when he used the word
"fathers," in this verse. The
word "fathers" does seem to suggest mature Christians.
Whatever the case, what John said to these fathers, the little
children, and the young men, can certainly apply to all believers in all
times and cultures.
The
words "in the beginning" might well refer to Genesis 1 in this
case and not to the beginning of Jesus' earthly ministry, as was the case in
1 John 1:1. In John's gospel
account, as seen in John 1:1, "in the beginning" is in reference
to Genesis 1 and it appears to me that is how we should understand the words
"in the beginning" here. If
this is the case, then John was saying that the One, meaning Jesus, already
existed in the beginning when all things were created, whenever that was.
This fact is fundamental to Christian doctrine.
Jesus has always existed in one form or another, and He will always
exist throughout eternity. He
lives outside of our time-space environment.
You might say that Jesus lives in the "eternal now."
All this tells us that Jesus is divine, and that fact is basic to
Christian doctrine.
The
word "know" in "you have come to know" should be thought
of in terms of knowing Jesus personally or experientially.
It means more than simply knowing about Jesus. John
went on to say that he was writing to young men because they have
"overcome the evil one." The
evil one in New Testament terms refers to the devil.
The
Greek verb "have overcome" is a perfect indicative active verb.
Perfect means that at one particular point in the past these young
men overcame the devil and were still in a place, or state, of victory when
it came to the devil when John was writing this letter.
The moment these young men overcame the devil in the past would have
been the moment they handed their lives over to Jesus, thus winning the
fight against Satan as it pertained to their initial salvation.
Indicative means that this overcoming was a certainty.
There was no doubt about their overcoming of Satan.
Active means that when they overcame, it was an action accomplished
by them. Of course, they would
have overcome the devil only with the help of the Holy Spirit that led them
to salvation. Without the Holy
Spirit, whether at initial salvation or during one's life as a Christian,
there is no overcoming of Satan.
I
would suggest that even though these people lived in a present state of
overcoming Satan, we should not understand that to mean the fight with the
evil one was over. There are
sufficient Biblical passages that state our fight with the devil is an
ever-present reality. Ephesians
6:10, and following, is just one well-known example of this.
It is just one of those many Biblical paradoxes.
That is to say, "We have won the fight, and, we still have a
fight to win."
Verse
14 "I
have written to you, children, because you have come to know the Father. I
have written to you, fathers, because you have come to know the one who is
from the beginning. I have
written to you, young men, because you are strong, God’s word remains
in you, and you have conquered the evil one." You
will notice a slight difference in verse 14 from verse 13.
Verse 13 begins with "I am writing" in all three cases.
Verse 14 begins with "I have written" in all three
instances. There has been much
speculation over why John switched verb tenses here, but I don't think it
makes a difference in the points that he was making.
John
wrote to the little children because they had come "to know" the
Father. The word
"know" should be understood as knowing God personally, or
experientially, at least to some degree.
The verb "come to know" is a perfect indicative active
verb. This means that those to
whom John wrote first knew the Father at some prior date and still knew Him
when John penned these words. This
knowing was a certainty. Active
means it was these people who were doing the knowing, and again, even though
John did not say it here, their knowing was aided by the Holy Spirit.
I am sure John would agree with me on that point. You
should know that the word "Father" is not found in the Greek text
in this particular verse. The
pronoun "Him" is what is written in the Greek text.
The CSB translators think that "Him" refers to the
"Father." The context
would seem to suggest this. John
then proceeded to address the young men.
John said that these young men were "strong" and because
God's "word remains" in them they had "overcome the evil
one," the devil. As in the
above statements, the words "you have overcome" are a perfect
indicative active verb. At some
prior point in their lives, these young men overcame the devil and they were
still in the state of being present-day over-comers, and that was a certain
fact. The
reason why these young men were present-day over-comers of the devil is
because God's Word abided, or lived, in them.
The Word of God for us today is found in the Bible.
I maintain that the Bible is not simply a book to be read or even
studied. It is the Word of God
that must sink into our heads and then into our hearts, from which it is
lived out in our daily lives. Only
when we live the Word of God can we mature as Christians and overcome both
self and Satan. Without the
precepts of the Bible living within a person, along with the Holy Spirit
involvement in the person’s life, there is no spiritual growth.
Review
In part, John was saying that there is no maturity for a Christian without knowing God and having the Word of God abide in one's life. Only then comes maturity, and part of maturity is overcoming the devil. Obviously John believed that the devil, or at least one of his agents, can temp the Christian away from the truth. I do believe that is true, but more often than not, we are our own worst enemy. We are tempted to sin because of our fallen sinful nature. The devil may help us sin, but we really don't need his help in this respect. James 1:14 confirms this to be true. It reads: "But
each person is tempted when he is drawn away and enticed by his own evil
desire." The
perfect indicative active verb tense John used throughout this section is
important. John used it in
reference to little children, the young men, and the fathers.
A perfect indicative active Greek verb tense is an action that first
took place in the past, with present-day implications.
There is no doubt about the present-day implications that resulted
from the past action. This was
important to John's readers because it re-affirmed to them that they were
indeed real Christians. They
gave their lives to Jesus in the past and that past action was still real in
their lives as John penned this letter.
You
will remember that part of the reason for John writing this letter was to
encourage his Christian readers who had suffered much trouble caused by the
heretics, which might have caused confusion in their lives.
These verses were a re-affirmation that John's readers were real
Christians and were still on the right track, and that was despite any
confusion or doubts his readers might have had due to the heretics and their
divisive doctrines.
Present-day
Applications Everything
that John said to these three groups of people, whoever they were, can apply
to us today. We have no excuse.
We must begin to know the Father and then progress in this knowing.
We must have the Word of God living within us each and every day of
our lives. Only then can we
overcome both Satan and self. I
have said it before and I say it again: as Christians we have no excuse for
not maturing in the Lord. That
which John said to his readers he should be able to say to us today.
2 Peter 1:3 confirms this. It
reads: "His
divine power has given us everything required for life and godliness through
the knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness." The
character quality of a real Christian, as seen in this passage, is that he
is capable of overcoming the devil. We,
thus, have no excuse. As the
apostle Peter confirmed in the above verse, we cannot say, "I am only
human." With the Holy
Spirit living within us, we are more than human.
As a matter of Biblical fact, according to 2 Corinthians 5:17, after
receiving the Holy Spirit into our lives, we are brand new human creatures,
and we are this because the very Spirit of the Almighty God lives within us.
We are nothing like our neighbours who do not have the Holy Spirit in
their lives. I
believe that 2 Corinthians 5:17 shows this to be true.
It reads as follows: "Therefore,
if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has passed away, and
see, the new has come!"
Concerning
being a new creation in Christ, I say this.
As a man is different from a woman, so a Christian is different from
a non-Christian (1
John 2:15 - 17) The
Text 15
- Do not love the world or the things in the world.
If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him.
16 For
everything in the world — the lust of the flesh, the lust of the
eyes, and the pride in one’s possessions — is not from the
Father, but is from the world. 17 And
the world with its lust is passing away, but the one who does the will
of God remains forever. My
Commentary Verse
15 "Do
not love the world or the things in the world.
If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in
him." This
verse begins with the verb "do not love."
This is a present imperative Greek verb.
That means right now, in real time, we must never love the world or
that which is in the world. The
imperative tense means that this is not a suggestion to think over.
It is a command to obey. The
Greek word "kosmos" is translated as "world" in this
verse. This word means "a
harmonious arrangement or ordering of things."
Kosmos could have been used in many ways when John wrote this letter.
He could have said that chairs aligned in rows were a kosmos.
Over time this Greek word came to mean the material world and the
universe. John used the word
"world" to mean the ordered surrounding culture in the day in
which he lived. We
are not to love, "agape" in Greek, any aspect of our surrounding
culture. Jesus said that our
culture was under the control of the devil.
He called Satan "the prince of this world." See
John 12:31, 14:30, 16:11. Paul
alluded to this in Ephesians 2:2 when he said this: "...
in which you previously lived according to the ways of this world, according
to the ruler [prince] of the power of the air, the spirit now working in the
disobedient." John
and Paul were on the same page concerning Satan's rule over man-made,
humanistic-orientated, even hedonistic, cultures.
Both men believed that when you gave your life to Jesus, you left
your surrounding culture that was heavily influenced by Satan in order to
live in the culture of God. The
culture of God differs drastically from the culture of man.
Why would anyone ever want to return to such a fallen,
human-orientated, culture after living in the culture of God? This
does not mean that we should become hermits and hide ourselves away from the
world, as the monks in times past have done.
We live in the world as representatives of Jesus.
We do not give ourselves to what our culture has to offer because we
have already given ourselves to Jesus, and Jesus said that we cannot serve
two masters. Matthew 6:24 says
this: "No
one can serve two masters, since either he will hate one and love the other,
or he will be devoted to one and despise the other. You
cannot serve both God and money." Notice
the Greek word "agape" that is translated as "love" in
John's letter. "Agape"
means "sacrificial love." It
was a word that went out of general use in the first-century, Greco-Roman,
world. For this reason
Christians began to use it to describe God's sacrificial love, which was
seen in Jesus' selfless act of love on the cross.
John was telling his readers not to sacrifice themselves to their
surrounding culture. We can
benefit from our culture, work in it, live in it, but not sacrifice
ourselves to it. We seek first
God's kingdom and not the kingdoms of this world, as Jesus commanded.
Matthew 6:33 says this: "But
seek first the Note
that Jesus did not say how or when all these things would be provided to His
followers. Besides that, the
context of this statement does not suggest that all of the good life our
culture has to offer is included in the words "all things."
The context clearly implies that the necessities of life, and that is
defined by God and not us, will be provided to those who place Jesus and His
kingdom first in his life. This
is one of Jesus' statements that has been misrepresented and misapplied in
today's western-world Christianity.
Verse
16 "For
everything in the world — the lust of the flesh, the lust of the
eyes, and the pride in one’s possessions — is not from the
Father, but is from the world." Verse
16 begins with "For everything in the world."
I suggest that everything means everything.
Nothing in the culture around us is excluded. There
is much that our flesh and our eyes can lust after that is in our
surrounding culture. As a matter
of fact, all cultures promote lust and unbiblical cravings in one way or
another. That certainly was the
case in John's day as it also is in our day.
We should understand the word "lust" to mean "to covet
or to crave." For the
Christian, we must not covet anything in the world because that distracts us
from our mission as Christians. It
also interferes with our ability to love God as we should. The
apostle Peter said something we should take seriously concerning the
surrounding culture of his day and that I believe would also apply to us.
In the first Christian sermon ever preached, he said this, in Acts
2:40. "With
many other words he testified and strongly urged them, saying, 'Be saved
from this corrupt generation! '" Peter
viewed the culture of his day as being corrupt and something to be saved, or
rescued, from. I believe we
should view our culture in the same way today.
I certainly do not think it is a stretch of our imaginations to
believe our culture, whether in politics, business, law, education,
religion, the arts, or whatever, is corrupt.
A few minutes of watching a twenty-four hour news channel on
television proves that to be true.
I
remind you that the false Christians in John's day believed that their
spirits were pure and holy while their flesh, or bodies, were sinful.
They considered their real self to be spirit.
Their material self was merely a suitcase to house their souls.
For this reason they did not worry about lusting after all that their
surrounding culture had to offer them, and there was much their culture
enticed them with. They, in
fact, indulged in all that the world had to offer, and they enjoyed all they
indulged in. What John was
saying here was in direct contrast to the heresies that were being promoted
in his day. As
I have said before, in many respects John is a black-and-white person.
There was little-to-no gray area with John's thinking.
We noted, back in chapter one, that there is only light and darkness
in God's thinking. There was no
gray. Either one lives in the
light of God or lives in the darkness of lusting after sin.
One, therefore, cannot love the world and love God at the same time.
One cannot give himself to God and give himself to the world at the
same time. You cannot serve God
and serve the world at the same time. It
is not really difficult to figure that out, but in today's western-world
Christianity; we seemed to have missed this point. Verse
17 "And
the world with its lust is passing away, but the one who does the will
of God remains forever." Verse
17 says that "the world with its lust is passing away."
You might wonder why John made this statement.
It has been nineteen hundred years and the world around us has not
yet passed away. If the world,
or culture, was passing away in John's day, its passing is taking a long
time. We can do nothing else but
agree with John. Right now, we
believe, that all of what the world is, is passing away.
At some future date, it will pass into extinction.
To narrow it down even further, the culture in which you live, will
pass away. That is a historic
fact. All
cultures and civilizations do pass away.
History shows us that all cultures rise and all cultures fall, and
that would include our present twenty-first-century western-world culture.
The Greco-Roman culture in John's day passed away as well.
One might think in these terms when considering what John meant by
the world, or an ordered culture, passing away.
The culture, in which John lived, did eventually pass away into
extinction. In
Biblical terms, the rise and fall of civilizations and cultures is a matter
of God's doing. Daniel 2:21 says
this: "He
changes the times and the season, he removes kings and establishes
kings" Daniel
4:25 says this: "You
[the king of These
two passages from Daniel clearly tell us that God is the Sovereign One over
cultures and civilizations. It
is He, not us, who ultimately causes cultures to either rise or fall.
In
contrast to the world passing away John said that "those who do the
will of God will remain forever." The
verb tense here is a present participle.
You could, therefore, translate these words this way.
"Those who are doers of the will by their very nature will
remain forever." The
participle puts the emphasis on the person, by his very nature, being a
present-day doer of God's will. He
is not just one who does God's will from time to time.
I believe there is a big difference between the two kinds of people.
Of course, the Bible teaches that we will not remain on this present
earth. Eventually God will
create a new earth for His people to live on, as seen at the end of the book
of Revelation. Revelation 21:1
says this: "Then
I saw a new heaven and a new
earth; for the first heaven and the first earth
had passed away, and the sea was no more."
In
the end, all cultures, civilizations, and nations will pass away. Review The
simple Biblical fact that we learn from this portion of Scripture is that if
we are to follow Jesus' command to seek His kingdom first, then we cannot
give ourselves to the surrounding culture in which we live.
Our culture, no matter how godly you think it might be or might have
been, is heavily influenced by Satan, the prince of this world.
Present-day
Implications In
today's western-world, Christians are being tempted with lustful coveting by
our culture more than ever. The
temptation to lust, to give ourselves to, what our culture has to offer is
all around us. It is what the
advertising industry is all about. Whether
it is television ads, radio ads, print ads, or internet ads, they all play
on our inherent tendency to crave for more than what we need and more than
what is good for us. In
past generations, in the western world, all that a family owned was usually
stored in its home, but not anymore. There
has been a whole industry built up in recent years that provides us with
storage units where we can house our possessions that we have no room for in
our homes. I think that shows
how hedonistic (loving of self) our culture has become.
In
decades past large families, except maybe if you lived on a farm, lived in
small houses. Today, it is just
the opposite. Small families
live in large houses. It
is my thinking that, in the western world, much of what we call Christianity
has given in to the lusts of this world.
As Christians, and as the church, we care more about our possessions
than we should. We are not
seeking first the The
call to western-world Christianity, and that includes the I
am sure you can recall when you first fell in love with your spouse.
Nothing else in life seemed to have mattered.
Everything, except the love of your life, was a blur.
At times your mental capacity to think properly was severely sapped.
The call by Jesus to the Ephesian church was for it to return to the
days when nothing else much mattered except for Jesus.
Human
tendency over time is to lose the intensity or passion for anything we first
loved. It is ironic to me that
the very church John was addressing in his first letter, and where he lived,
was the very church Jesus had to rebuke for losing its first love.
This must have saddened John's heart immensely.
The
main character trait of a Christian we read about in this passage is that he
is a lover of God and His ways. He
is not a lover of the world around him, in which he lives.
(1
John 2:18 - 23) The
Text 18
- Children, it is the last hour. And as you have heard that antichrist is
coming, even now many antichrists have come. By this we know that it is the
last hour. 19 They went
out from us, but they did not belong to us; for if they had belonged to us,
they would have remained with us. However, they went out so that it might be
made clear that none of them belongs to us.
20 But
you have an anointing from the Holy One, and all of you know the
truth. 21 I
have not written to you because you don’t know the truth, but because you
do know it, and because no lie comes from the truth. 22 Who
is the liar, if not the one who denies that Jesus is the Christ? This
one is the antichrist: the one who denies the Father and the Son. 23 No
one who denies the Son has the Father; he who confesses the Son has the
Father as well. My
Commentary Verse
18 "Children,
it is the last hour. And as you have heard that antichrist is
coming, even now many antichrists have come. By
this we know that it is the last hour." Verse
18 begins with the word "children."
As I have said earlier, the words "little children," or
just "children," as seen here, are in reference, not to little
children in age, but to all John's readers.
The one exception to this would be found in 1 John 2:15 through 17,
but that would depend on how you interpret that passage.
John, at the time of writing was an old man and he viewed his readers
as children in the faith, just as Paul viewed Timothy as his son in the
faith. John
then made what has become a somewhat confusing statement.
He said that "this is the last hour."
John seems to have said that the last hour, and most would believe
that it is in reference to the last days of this present age, had already
come. You see a similar wording
in Revelation 1:3 where John repeated Jesus in saying that the "time is
near." Both the words
"last hour" and "time is near" suggest that John must
have thought that the end of this age was almost upon him.
You might say it this way. In
prophetic time, it was five minutes to mid-night.
Some
view this bit of confusion as a problem.
It has been about nineteen-hundred years and the end of this age has
not yet arrived, so how could John, under the inspiration of the Holy
Spirit, have proclaimed it to be the last hour when he penned this letter?
There have been many attempts at answering this question over the
centuries, and I am not sure that what I might add will bring further
clarity. One
thing we do know is that the New Testament uses the term "last
days," and I would also say the term "last hour," in what can
be understood in two ways. They
can be understood in terms of the final days or years, especially the seven
years of tribulation, that end this age.
The other way they can be understood is that those days began at the
Day of Pentecost, as seen in Peter's quotation of Joel 2:28 to 32 that
begins with the words "in the last days."
By using this Old Testament prophetic passage that spoke of the last
days, Peter was saying that from that point on, i.e. from the time when the
Holy Spirit was given to the believers, as seen in Acts2, it was considered
to be the last days. However, if
you read all of Joel's prophecy, the last days that Joel had in mind were
the last few days that would end this age.
Peter thus put a different prophetic spin to Joel's prophecy, but
that is a topic for another day. I
do not think we can read John's mind on this matter, so whatever any of us
say concerning this is somewhat speculative.
What I can say is this. The
common thinking among first-century Christians was that the last days began
on the Day of Pentecost, but they also understood that there would also be a
period of time at the very end of this age that is also considered the last
days. In those future days the
man whom John called the "antichrist" would appear on the world
scene. With this in mind, John
admitted that the antichrist had not yet appeared, but many lesser
antichrists, or those with a spirit of antichrist, were already on the
scene. If, then, only the spirit
of antichrist was active in the world in John's day, then the real
antichrist was still yet to come.
Something
else to consider is that we do not know if John was using the term
"last hour" as a synonym to "last days" or not.
If he equated the last hour with the last days, then we might not
have a problem because in one sense of the word the last days or last hour
began on the Day of Pentecost, as seen in Acts 2.
It is my thinking that John would have understood the last hour to be
the last days. The
verb "have come" in the phrase "many antichrists have
come" is a perfect tense Greek verb.
This simply means that at one point prior to John writing this letter
antichrists began to rise up and they were still present to poison the
church when John was writing this letter.
This being the case, we also have an abundance of antichrists in our
world today that are afflicting the church. John
ended this verse by saying that "this is how we know it is the last
hour." One clear sign by
which we can know we are in the last hour or last days is the presence of
those with the spirit of antichrist in them.
Then, when it comes to the very last days, that is, the end of this
age, when we see the long-awaited-for antichrist rise to world-wide
dominance, we know the end of the age is upon us.
The
fact that John said there were already many antichrists in the world, and
the fact that he equated these antichrists with the last hour, provide
evidence that he understood, like Peter, that the last hour or last days,
began on the Day of Pentecost. When
thinking of the antichrist, considering the Greek word translated as
"anti," this man will appear on that world scene as one who is
both against Christ and comes in the place of Christ.
He comes to the world making himself out to be the real Christ.
The
apostle Paul wrote about the antichrist but he called him the "lawless
one," and the "man of sin," who "exalts himself"
over all that which is called God, and in fact demands worship as if he were
God. You can read about what
Paul had to say on this matter, in 2 Thessalonians 2:1 through 12. Verse
19 "They
went out from us, but they did not belong to us; for if they had belonged to
us, they would have remained with us. However, they went out so that it
might be made clear that none of them belongs to us." I
have mentioned verses 18 and 19 earlier in this commentary.
We read here that the heretics who were promoting the false claims
had already left the church at some point prior to John writing this letter.
This had been one major church split, and it was not a split in the
way you might think of church splits today.
This was not just one of many congregations in a certain locality
that had split. This was a major
divide in an entire geographical area that spread beyond one particular
city. This
division among the believers reminds me of a division that the apostle Paul
addressed, in 1 Corinthians 11:19. Concerning
the division within the Corinthian community of believers he said this: "Indeed,
it is necessary that there be factions among you, so that those who are
approved may be recognized among you." Paul
was definitely against division in the church.
You know this from what he said, in 1 Corinthians 1:10 through 17,
but in the above passage he put another spin on church splits.
Basically, he recognized that there would be divisions in the church
but that these divisions would prove who was of God and who was not of God.
This is very similar to what John said here.
Both John and Paul recognized the ever-present tendency for church
splits. Both men would say that
the divide would show who was of God and who was not of God; who were real
Christians and who were false Christians; who were real members of the
church and who were not.
John
was saying, in this verse, that these heretics were in fact antichrists.
They were not "the antichrist", but they possessed the
spirit of antichrist. So they
were not just heretics. They
were more than heretics. They
were, at least by John's thinking, replacing the real Jesus with themselves.
I say this because of the linguistic and first-century, religious
meaning of the word "antichrist."
John
said that these heretical antichrists never belonged to the real church in
the first place. They were never
real Christians. If they had
been real Christians, who were fitted into the church, they would not have
left their brothers and sisters in Christ.
This goes back to the word "fellowship," in chapter 1,
verse 6, that we noted previously. These
antichrist heretics claimed to have fellowship with God but didn't, because
they walked in darkened sin. Then,
in 1 John 1:7, John said that if these people actually did live in the light
of God, they would have fellowship with their Christian brothers and
sisters. They would not have
left the fellowship, the Body of Christ, as John said that they did, here in
verse 19. What
John said here proves what I have said for years.
Not all who consider themselves as part of the church are actually
part of the church. Not all that
attend a meeting of the church on a Sunday morning are members of the
church. Not all who call
themselves Christians are Christians. In
today's ecclesiastical world, you could say that the wheat is growing
alongside of the weeds. Verse
20 "But
you have an anointing from the Holy One, and all of you know the
truth." Verse
20 begins with "you have an anointing from the Holy One."
The word "anointing" in Biblical terms is when something,
for example oil, is poured over someone for a specific reason.
An example of this is seen on the occasion when Jesus was anointed by
the Holy Spirit when He was baptized in water.
The Holy Spirit came upon Him in a visible form for all to see.
It is not that Jesus did not have the Holy Spirit in His life,
because He did. In fact, He and
the Spirit are one. The New
Testament refers to the Holy Spirit as the "Spirit of Jesus" (Acts
16:7 and Philippians 1:19) and as the "Spirit of Christ." (Romans
8:9 and 1 Peter 1:11). The fact
of the matter is that there is more to the Holy Spirit than one person, even
Jesus, can contain. The Spirit
of God came on Jesus, or anointed Him, as the long-awaited Messiah of God,
and since He was that Messiah, He would now begin His messianic mission. The
one hundred and twenty disciples of Jesus, seen in Acts 2, were also
anointed with the Holy Spirit. They
were anointed with the Holy Spirit for the same reason Jesus was, and that
was so they could carry out the mission that Jesus had begun.
Acts 1:8 says it this way. "But
you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come on you, and you will be
my witnesses in Like
the one hundred and twenty on the Day of Pentecost, John's readers had been
anointed with the Holy Spirit as well. I
understand that to mean that they had received the Holy Spirit into their
lives at some point prior to John writing this letter.
The
last part of verse 20 says that "all of you know the truth."
The verb "know" is yet another perfect-tense Greek verb,
meaning that at one specific time in the past these believers began knowing
the truth and they still knew it as John was writing these words.
Of course, as John 14:6 states, Jesus is the ultimate truth.
If you know Jesus, you obviously know the truth, something the
antichrist heretics knew nothing about.
Verse
21 "I
have not written to you because you don’t know the truth, but because you
do know it, and because no lie comes from the truth." Verse
21 says volumes about John's readers. They
knew the truth. John was not
writing to them because they had to be convinced of what was true.
This letter was a simple re-affirmation of what they already knew,
but in the midst of all of the heretical teaching and confusion, they needed
the truth re-affirmed to them. If
you recall my thoughts on the word "we," that was used back in 1
John 1:6, 7, 8, 9, and 10, this verse clearly states that even though the
word "we" referred to John and his Christian readers, John was not
implying that they believed the false claims promoted by the heretics, that
he addressed, back in chapter one.
The
phrase "no lie comes from the truth" directly contrasts John’s
readers with the heretics who John was calling liars throughout this letter.
John's readers were not liars, because they lived in the light of
God's truth and love. Verse
22 "Who
is the liar, if not the one who denies that Jesus is the Christ? This
one is the antichrist: the one who denies the Father and the Son." Verse
22 tells us that the one "who denies that Jesus is the Christ" is
a liar. The words "one who
denies" is a present Greek participle.
This puts the emphasis on a lifestyle of denying.
It is not simply that one makes statements of denial.
Those ones are liars, or deniers, by their very nature.
The
liars live a life of denying that Jesus was in fact the Christ, the Messiah,
sent by God to offer salvation to all who receive it.
The
Greek word "christos" is translated into English as
"Christ." The word
means "the anointed one." Again,
Jesus was anointed with the Holy Spirit to accomplish God's messianic
mission while He lived on this planet, and He was so anointed when the Holy
Spirit was poured out on him when John the Baptist baptized Him in water.
John
then said that this denier is an antichrist because he denies both the
Father and the Son. This speaks
about the unity of the Father and Son yet also speaks about the diversity of
the Father and the Son. The
Father and the Son are both one yet also distinctly different.
This also speaks about the fact that the denier does not believe that
Jesus, when on earth, was God in a human body.
The heretics in John's day did not believe in the Deity of Christ.
They believed in a different Jesus, who was not the Jesus whom John
proclaimed.
Verse
23 "No
one who denies the Son has the Father; he who confesses the Son has the
Father as well." Here
John said that the "one who denies," and once again it is a
present participle that means that it is the one who is a denier at the core
of who he is, does not have the Father.
Back in chapter 1, verse 6, the first false claim made by the
heretics that John addressed stated that one could live in darkened sin but
still have fellowship, or share his life, with God the Father.
Knowing that God is light and in Him there is no darkness of sin (1
John 1:5), such a claim is illogical. John
re-affirmed to his readers that such a denier does not have the Father in
his life. Remember, back in 1
John 1:3 John said that a true believer actually has fellowship, the sharing
of his life, with both God the Father and Jesus the Son. John
then said that the "one who confesses" that Jesus is the Christ
has the Father. This phrase is
also a present participle. This
puts the emphasis on a lifestyle of confessing, or of agreeing with God on
all things, as the Greek word translated as "confess" means.
So once again, as John said, in chapter 1, verse 3, the true
Christian has within Him both the Father and the Son.
This is possible because of the Holy Spirit who lives within the true
believer. As
we have seen throughout John's letter, we see again here.
There is a unity between Father and Son and Spirit, each having His
own distinctive personhood. In
theological terms, this has been called the Trinity. Review
John
said that the one who lives a life of denying that Jesus is in fact the
Christ, the Holy One sent by God to offer salvation to all, is an
antichrist. He is not the
antichrist that will appear at the end of the age, but he is an antichrist,
one with the spirit of antichrist within him.
Such a denier is not a Christian.
In
contrast, the true Christian is one who lives, by his very new nature in
Christ, a life of confessing, or agreeing with God, that Jesus is in fact
the Christ. He realizes that
present-day antichrists are forerunners of the end-time antichrist who is
yet to come onto the world scene. He,
the true Christian, realizes that he is a true Christian because he has the
anointing of the Holy Spirit in his life.
The Christians in John's day had no need to be taught by men like the
heretics who were out to deceive the true Christian.
John,
like Paul, admitted to there being church splits, although both men did not
like these splits. The only
positive that could come from a church split, according to both men, was
that the split would clearly show who the true members of the Body of Christ
were, those who were true Christians, and who were approved by God, which
would have been validated with the presence of the Holy Spirit in the life
of the true believer. Present-day
Implications The
characteristic of a true Christian that is seen in this passage is that he
lives a life of agreeing with God on all things, because that is what the
word "confess" means. If
that is you, then you are a true believer.
This is the truth that John affirmed to his readers, in this section.
You
may struggle at times with agreeing with God in all things, but at the core
of who you are as a new creation in Christ, it is your desire to be in full
accordance with God's thinking on all things.
Another
character quality of a true Christian that is seen here in this passage is
that he knows he is a vital member of the Body of Christ and he would do
nothing to cause division. His
heart's desire is to stay in what I call functional fellowship with those to
whom Jesus has placed him in the Body of Christ.
In other words, he is not a Christian that floats from one
congregation to another in order to meet his personal needs.
He wants to serve with those he is related to in Christ.
We
should know that at some point in the future, there will be a world leader
who the New Testament predicts will deceive many of those living in the
known world. John called this
man the antichrist. Paul called
him the lawless one and the man of sin.
He has been given a number of names in the Bible.
Some Bible teachers suggest there might be thirty three names that
can be found in the Bible concerning the antichrist.
Until the day comes when this man of sin attempts to deceive the
nations, we should know that our culture has many in it who have the spirit
of antichrist. As a matter of
fact, I believe our western-world culture is antichrist at its very core.
For this reason we should be very careful how we associate with such
an antichrist culture. What
I see happening in the I
was once involved in what was the Conservative Christian Right Movement in
the Your
nation may well have been influenced by Christian values and Biblical
thought, but that does not mean it was, or still is, Christian.
As far as western nations go today, there is less Christian influence
than there ever was in the past. The
call to the church is not to Christianize your nation through government
legislation, but to lead individual citizens in your nation to Jesus.
The
way to influence any culture is to lead those in that culture to Christ.
I am not saying that a Christian cannot be involved in politics or
any other cultural activity. Our
lights as Christians should shine in all aspects of culture. When
it comes to political involvement for those of us living in a democracy, as
citizens of the democratic state, we have the right to run for political
office, and so we should, if that is what we feel we should do.
However, we do need to understand that our first calling as a
Christian is to lead people to Jesus.
One
of my favourite Bible teachers in the 1980's was Ern Baxter.
He said something that I have never forgotten concerning Pat
Robertson's (founder and president of the Christian Broadcasting Network)
run for the presidency of the Unite States in 1988.
He told me that if Robertson ever became President of the (1
John 2:24 - 29) The
Text 24
- What you have heard from the beginning is to remain in you.
If what you have heard from the beginning remains in you, then you
will remain in the Son and in the Father. 25 And
this is the promise that he himself made to us: eternal life.
26 I have
written these things to you concerning those who are trying to deceive you.
27 As
for you, the anointing you received from him remains in you, and you don’t
need anyone to teach you. Instead, his anointing teaches you about all
things and is true and is not a lie; just as it has taught you, remain
in him. 28 So
now, little children, remain in him so that when he appears we may have
confidence and not be ashamed before him at his coming. 29 If
you know that he is righteous, you know this as well: Everyone who does what
is right has been born of him. My
Commentary Verse
24 "What
you have heard from the beginning is to remain in you.
If what you have heard from the beginning remains in you, then you
will remain in the Son and in the Father." Verse
24 begins with the words "what you have heard from the beginning."
These words should remind
you of John's opening statement, found back in chapter 1.
What these believers heard in the beginning days was the gospel
message that included knowledge of the real Jesus whom the heretics
rejected. To be more precise, in
1 John 1:5, John said that the message these believers first heard was that
"God is light and in Him is no darkness." The
words "remain" and "remains" in this verse are
present-tense verbs. This fact
has caused much debate over the years. The
debate is over whether a Christian can lose his salvation.
Those who believe a Christian can get unsaved use this verse, along
with other verses, in their defence. They
say the word "if" is the key in the debate.
If a Christian remains in Jesus, or, remains in the truth of the
gospel, then, and only then, will he remain in the Father and the Son.
If the believer, however, fails to remain in the truth of the gospel
then he no longer remains in the Father and the Son, and thus loses his
salvation. The
Greek word "meno" is translated as "remain" in this
verse. It simply means "to
live." The one thing we can
know for sure about this verse is that the truth of the gospel must
"live" (present tense) in the believer.
If the truth of Jesus lives in the person then there will be some
visible effect seen in the life of that person.
The word "live" suggests that the truth is not lying
dormant. It is alive and working
effectively as it should be, in the believer.
This should be evident in all Christians today. Those
who believe in Eternal Security, a belief that one cannot lose his
salvation, say that this verse simply means that the believers who do not
allow the truth to be a living force in their lives just lose the fellowship
with God the Father and Jesus the Son. They
do not lose their salvation. Personally
speaking, I do not believe in Eternal Security although I am as close to
believing in it as one can be without whole-heartedly accepting the
doctrine. There are sufficient
Scriptures that suggest one can lose his salvation, and this may or may not
be one. On the other hand, there
are many Scriptures that suggest that one cannot lose his salvation.
As far as I am concerned, at least to date, I do not feel anyone
really has the full truth on this matter.
That being said, many so-called believers who fall away from Jesus
have not lost their salvation because they were never saved in the first
place. One cannot lose his
salvation if he has never had salvation to lose.
What we call “church” today is filled with people who claim to be
Christian and who are not. They
have not repented of their sinful life.
They have simply given mental assent to Biblical truth, an assent
which saves no one. They have
not handed their lives over to Jesus in faith.
They have not received into their being the Holy Spirit that is the
authoritative seal, or proof, of their salvation.
Paul speaks about this in Ephesians 1:13 and 4:30.
If
you take time to read the book of Hebrews you will note that both sides of
this doctrine can be supported. Here
are just two passages to consider. Hebrews
6:4 through 6 suggests, to some, that one can lose his salvation.
The text reads: "For
it is impossible to renew to repentance those who were once enlightened, who
tasted the heavenly gift, who shared in the Holy Spirit, who tasted God’s
good word and the powers of the coming age, and who have fallen away.
This is because, to their own harm, they are recrucifying the Son of
God and holding him up to contempt." Hebrews
10:14 seems to suggest one cannot lose his salvation.
That verse reads: "For
by one offering he [Jesus] has perfected forever those who are
sanctified." I
understand that those holding strongly to one side of the doctrinal issue or
the other side have their reasons why both of the above passages agree with
their thinking. However, many of
those arguments fall short of sound logic.
Something
else to consider is this. Our
English word "remains" might be somewhat problematic, depending on
how you understand its meaning. The
word "remains" suggest that the message of the gospel can leave a
person. It also suggests, then
that one can leave the Father and the Son.
That would suggest one can lose one's salvation.
The
more basic meaning to the Greek word "meno" means "to
live," or, "to dwell." This
might portray a different meaning of this verse, to some.
Here is the verse using the word "live" instead of
"remains."
"What
you have heard from the beginning is to live in you.
If what you have heard from the beginning lives in you, then you will
live in the Son and in the Father." The
emphasis in this translation is on the message being alive within a person,
not remaining in the person with the possibility of leaving that person.
The living message in a person, thus, causes that person to live in
both the Father and the Son. The
idea of leaving is not so clearly seen in the above translation.
Verse
25 "And
this is the promise that he himself made to us: eternal life." Verse
25 states that "He Himself" has promised us "eternal
life." The words "He
Himself" that John used a few times in his letter put the emphasis on
Jesus. It is Jesus, and Jesus
alone, who has promised us eternal life.
The heretics cannot make this promise.
The
eternal life that John wrote about is living throughout eternity in the
presence of God. Eternal life is
the positive side, because, there is a negative side as well.
It is eternal death. Those
whose names are not found written in the Lamb's Book of Life will spend
eternity in what the Book of Revelation calls the “ The
Greek word "epaggelia" is translated here as "promised."
In the first century Greco-Roman world this was a legal term.
It was a legal promise to do something or to give someone something.
Why John might use this legal term may be debatable.
Those who believe in Eternal Security would use this word in their
defence. That is to say, a legal
promise is a legal promise that cannot be broken or revoked.
This would mean that once God granted salvation to someone, He would
not take it away. Verse
26 "I
have written these things to you concerning those who are trying to deceive
you." John
specifically states, in verse 26, why he was writing this letter.
If they have not already guessed, he specifically said that he was
writing to them because of the heretics who were attempting to draw them
away from the truth. John could
no longer leave this issue on the sidelines.
The heretics had to be exposed for the antichrists they were.
Their heresies had to be confronted and condemned as lies.
Verse
27 "As
for you, the anointing you received from him remains in you, and you don’t
need anyone to teach you. Instead, his anointing teaches you about all
things and is true and is not a lie; just as it has taught you, remain
in him." John
told his readers that "the anointing" they received still
remained, or lived, in them. This
was a re-affirmation that these people still had the Holy Spirit living
within them. They had not lost
Him (the Holy Spirit) who is the heavenly seal of approval stating that they
were valid believers. These
people received the Spirit of God into their lives and they did so by means
of an anointing, an outpouring, as seen in Acts 2 and elsewhere in the book
of Acts. Over
the years verse 27 has often been misused and abused.
Many have said that they do not need any Christian teacher to teach
them anything. They claim that
the Holy Spirit teaches them all things and, thus, they have no need for a
human teacher. More often than not, those believing such a thing are usually
off-base in almost all they believe. They
are hypocritical because they teach others their false doctrine, and that
act of teaching goes against their very claim that a Christian does not need
a human teacher. Verse
27 must be taken in the context of what John is saying in his letter.
John is telling his readers that the anointing, the Holy Spirit who
remains in them, tells them that the heresies being promoted among them is a
lie. No human teacher needs to
tell them that. The
ministry of teaching is seen throughout the New Testament.
It is one of the four-fold ministries of Christ, as seen in Ephesians
4:11. That
verse reads: "And
he himself gave some to be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, some
pastors and teachers." Paul's
letters were instructive. John,
in this very letter, was instructing his readers.
If John did not believe in human teachers we would have none of his
writings because he would not have written anything.
The
words "is not a lie," in reference to the anointing of the Holy
Spirit within a person, are in direct contrast to the heretics and their
heresies that John has been calling liars and their lies throughout his
letter. The heretics lie.
The Holy Spirit cannot lie. John
ends this thought by saying, "remain in Him."
Again the word "remain" might suggest that one can depart
from the Holy Spirit's anointing. If,
however, you view this statement to say, "live in Him," that might
well present a different picture of what John meant.
Maybe I am making too much out of this but I think the words
"live" or "lives" put a more positive spin on what John
said. The words
"remain" or "remains" put a negative spin on what John
said. Verse
28 "So
now, little children, remain in him so that when he appears we may have
confidence and not be ashamed before him at his coming" John
has been admonishing his readers to remain, or live, in God.
He now states another reason for this admonition.
Some day, all believers will stand before Jesus and give account of
what they have done or have not done in the service of the Lord.
This is not the White Throne Judgment, as seen in Revelation 20:11
and following, where sinners are judged and sent to the "According
to God’s grace that was given to me, I have laid a foundation as a skilled
master builder, and another builds on it. But
each one is to be careful how he builds on it. For no one can lay any other foundation than
what has been laid down. That
foundation is Jesus Christ. If anyone builds on the foundation
with gold, silver, costly
stones, wood,
hay, or straw, each
one’s work will become obvious. For
the day will disclose it, because it will be revealed by fire; the fire
will test the quality of each one’s work. If
anyone’s work that he has built survives, he will receive a reward. If
anyone’s work is burned up, he will experience loss, but he himself
will be saved — but only as through fire." The
words "that day," in the above passage, are in reference to the
"Day of the Lord" when all true believers will meet Jesus face to
face. It is that day when our
works, not us, are judged. Understanding
what Paul wrote, as John would have understood it, John was saying that he
did not want himself or his readers to be ashamed of themselves or their
good works on the day they will stand before Jesus.
One
thing John was saying, then, is that the way we live in the present should
be influenced by the fact that we will all have to stand before Jesus at
some future date and give account of ourselves.
This accounting is not a matter of our salvation.
We are already saved. It
is a matter of what we have done for Jesus in this life.
Verse
29 "If
you know that he is righteous, you know this as well: Everyone who does what
is right has been born of him." Verse
29 states yet another characteristic of a true Christian.
"Everyone who does right as been born of Him."
The words "born of Him" should remind us of Jesus telling
Nicodemus, in John 3:3 through 5, that a person must be "born
again." Being born again
takes place when the Holy Spirit comes to live within a person.
At that moment of time, the person becomes a brand new creation, a
new creation that Paul wrote about, in 2 Corinthians 5:17.
Being a brand new creation means that one is no longer what he once
was. This is the meaning of who
a true Christian is. One who has
been born of the Spirit will, as John said here, exhibit a life of
righteousness. That does not
mean he or she will act perfectly right, as God defines perfectly right, all
of the time. It does mean that
the desire to be perfectly right will be clearly seen in his or her life,
and to one degree or another will be lived out in his or her life on a daily
basis.
Review John
re-affirmed to his readers that all of what they heard in the beginning
days, when the gospel of Jesus was preached to them, must be alive and
working in their lives. It was
this truth that should alert them to the false claims the heretics were
afflicting them with. The
presence of the truth and the Holy Spirit in the lives of true Christians is
sufficient for them to discern what is true teaching and what is false
teaching. If
the believers to whom John was writing lived in the truth, they would not be
ashamed of themselves when they will stand before Jesus to give an account
of what they have done in service to their Lord.
Present-day
Implications The
characteristic of a true Christian that is seen in this section of John's
letter is having the ability to discern false doctrine.
If the truth of God is living in you as it should be, you should know
what is true and what is false. Our
problem is that the truth of the Word of God may be in our minds, but it has
not been allowed to sink into our hearts where we form our convictions of
life. The truth, then, is not
alive and working in our lives. If
this is the case for us, which it is in the lives of many who call
themselves Christians, then, we cannot discern the difference between true
and false doctrine. The
truth of God must be alive and working in our lives.
If it is, then, both God the Father and Jesus His Son remain in us
and us in them. I admit that the
word "remain" is open to debate.
Whatever side of the debate you are on, the important thing is that
the truth of the gospel of Jesus must not lie dormant in your life.
It must be alive. It must
be working effectively to produce the life of Jesus in your life.
There
is another thing that I believe is missing in the lives of many Christians
these days. Many people who
claim to be Christians do not think or live in terms of doing the works of a
Christian, works that we must give account of before Jesus some day.
We, therefore, must think seriously about the way we serve Jesus
today because what we do or not do for Jesus today has real future
implications. We are not called
to be, what I call, "Christian couch potatoes" who sit around
doing nothing for the Lord. We
are called to do the work of Christians, works that Jesus has mandated us to
do. This is clearly seen, in
Ephesians 2:8 through 10. The
text reads:
"For
you are saved by grace through faith, and this is not from yourselves; it is
God’s gift — not from works, so that no one
can boast. For we are his
workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared
ahead of time for us to do." According
to Paul, Christians are to be busy doing good works, good works that God,
even before we were born, has prepared for us to do. (1
John 3:1 - 6) The
Text 1 - See what great love the Father has
given us that we should be called God’s children — and we are!
The reason the world does not know us is that it didn’t know him.
2 Dear
friends, we are God’s children now, and what we will be has not yet been
revealed. We know that when he appears, we will be like him because
we will see him as he is. 3And everyone who has this hope in him purifies himself
just as he is pure. 4 Everyone
who commits sin practices lawlessness; and sin is lawlessness. 5 You
know that he was revealed so that he might take away sins, and there is
no sin in him. 6 Everyone
who remains in him does not sin; everyone who sins has not seen
him or known him. My
Commentary Verse
1 "See
what great love the Father has given us that we should be called
God’s children — and we are! The
reason the world does not know us is that it didn’t know him." In
verse 1, we note the "great love the Father has given us."
The word "love,"
in this verse, speaks about sacrificial love.
It is translated from the Greek word "agape," a word that
first-century Christians adopted to express God's sacrificial love directed
towards mankind. Anyone who
understands, even just a little bit, how God views sin and humanity's
sinfulness, understands, just a little bit, how great God's love is.
Jeremiah 17:9 gives us a brief picture of how God views sin in our
lives. It says:
"The
heart is more deceitful than anything else, and incurable — who can understand it?" Understanding
how God views sin makes it difficult for us to comprehend that He actually
entered the world of sinful humanity in order to be punished with death on
our behalf. This has resulted in
us being seen as God's sons and daughters in His eyes.
As children of God we have been declared righteous, just as God
Himself is righteous. I call
that unbelievable love. This has
been called the doctrine of Justification, a Biblical teaching that must be
burned into the hearts of all true believers. John
then added the words "and we are" to emphasize that fact that God
has indeed lavished great love onto us.
The words "and we are" are meant to re-affirm to John's
Christian readers that they were indeed God's children, despite all of the
confusion and division caused by the heretics and their followers. Verse
2 "Dear
friends, we are God’s children now, and what we will be has not yet been
revealed. We know that when he appears, we will be like him because
we will see him as he is." The
words "dear friends," in verse 2, are translated from the Greek
word "agapetos." This
word comes from the Greek word "agape," which John used throughout
his letter. Once again,
"agape" expresses sacrificial love.
Because "agape" means "sacrificial love" I
believe the words "dear friends" are a weak translation, in the
CSB. Some versions of the Bible
translate "agapetos" as "dearly beloved."
I prefer "dearly beloved," even though it might be an
outdated term, because it better reflects the Greek text that promotes
friendship based the friends sacrificing themselves for each other.
John
went on to tell his readers that right then, in their present time, they
were children of God. It was not
that they would be children of God at some future date.
When they received the Holy Spirit into their lives they were
spiritually born into the family of God, with God as the family's Father.
If one does not have the Spirit of God - the life blood of the family
- in his life, then that one is not part of God's family.
He is not a child of God. Romans
8:9 makes that clear. It reads: "If
anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to him." If
one does not belong to God, then one cannot be considered a child of God.
He cannot be a true Christian. It
is that simple. John
told us here that despite who we are as Christians right now, we will not
always be who we presently are. When
we see Jesus, and I believe that will be at His second coming to earth, we
will be like Jesus. What Jesus
looks like right now, or, what kind of appearance He has, may be debatable.
The general consensus is that He has what Christians have called a
glorified human body, the body that many believe He had after He rose from
the dead and before He returned to His Father in heaven.
Whether Jesus' post resurrection body is the body He has now may be
debatable as well. One thing I
believe, and that I am sure of, is that Jesus has some kind of recognizable
form and whatever that form is, will be our form in the future.
What
John said, in this section of his letter, Paul also said in his own way, in
Romans 8:29, when he wrote that Jesus is "the firstborn from among the
dead." Jesus was the first
one born into this new eternal creation.
The believers are the second, third, fourth, and so on, born from
among the dead. Romans 8:29 says
this: "For
those he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his
Son, so that he would be the firstborn among many brothers and sisters." How
will we actually become like Jesus? John
said that it is because "we will see Him as He is."
It appears to me, then, that just seeing Jesus in person will
transform us into His likeness. I
cannot begin to imagine what it will be like to be in the very presence of
Jesus, and to be immediately transformed into something I have never been.
It is beyond human reasoning. Paul
said something similar, in 1 Corinthians 2:9. "But as it is written, What no eye has seen, no ear has heard, and no human heart has conceived — God has prepared these things for those who love him." Verse
3 "And
everyone who has this hope in him purifies himself just as he is
pure." Note
the word "hope," in verse 3. It
is my opinion that an emphasis on faith overshadows proper teaching on hope
in much of Christian theology. The
word "hope" has a specific Biblical meaning, and it has nothing to
do with doubt or uncertainty. If
you understand hope in terms of how our western culture views hope, that is,
I hope to win the lottery, you have misunderstood Biblical hope.
Hoping to win the lottery is not a certainty.
It is more doubtful than anything else.
Biblical hope, on the other hand, is a certain expectation of a
future reality that is not yet a present reality.
In this sense of the word, Biblical hope is closer to Biblical faith
than many realize. Biblical hope
does not express doubt, as our culture's understanding of hope does.
The
hope of a future reality that John wrote about, here, was the expectation of
the return of Jesus to earth when the Christian will be transformed into the
very likeness and image of Jesus. It
is my thinking that what we will look like is really unknown.
We may speculate all we want, but our ideas and speculations may not
be the reality when that day comes. John
said that "everyone who has this hope in him purifies himself."
This clearly puts some responsibility on the Christian.
As Christians we have responsibilities.
One of these responsibilities is to purify, or clean ourselves from
our sinfulness. We have already
seen, in 1 John 1:8, that the blood of Jesus cleans the stain that sin
leaves in our lives. Here we see
that part of our job is to clean the actual sin out of our lives.
In theological terms this is part of the process that is called
"sanctification," which means that as we become more dedicated to
Jesus, we will not sin as much as we once did. Of
course, we have help in the process of sanctifying ourselves.
The Holy Spirit, in connection with His Word written in the Bible,
assists us in cleaning up the sin from our lives.
The
knowledge that as Christians we have certain responsibilities is lost, in my
opinion, on many Christians these days.
I admit, in "I
only want to learn this from you: Did you receive the Spirit by the works of
the law or by believing what you heard? Are
you so foolish? After beginning
by the Spirit, are you now finishing by the flesh?" I
like how the NIV version of the Bible ends the above passage.
It asks this question. "Are
you now made perfect by human effort?"
The obvious answer to this question is, "no."
Human effort does not complete the work that the Holy Spirit has
begun in the life of the believer, and Paul was adamant about that.
Verse
4 "Everyone
who commits sin practices lawlessness; and sin is lawlessness" John
said that "everyone who commits sin practices lawlessness."
The two verb tenses are important here.
The words "commits sin" in the phrase "everyone who
commits sin" are a present participle.
This puts the emphasis on the fact of the one sinning as being a
sinner, not just one who sins from time to time.
He is in fact, by virtue of his human nature, is a full-time sinner.
The
words "practices lawlessness" is a present indicative verb.
This means that the full-time sinner is certain to commit acts of sin
in present time. What else can
he really do? John is not
writing about the Christian here. He
is writing about the heretics and those who are following their lead.
By their very nature, they are committers of sin. Note
the word "lawlessness" in this verse.
This is yet another one of a number of verses in the New Testament
that defines sin, definitions which the heretics in John's day rejected.
According to this verse, sin means disobedience to law, whether God's
law, man's law, church law, or, I might add, natural law, as might be seen
in the homosexual lifestyle. The
heretics might well have been in compliance with man-made civil laws but
they were not in compliance with the New Testament laws of Jesus which, as I
have said earlier, are not the six hundred and thirteen laws found in the
Law of Moses.
You
do not see it in the English text, but in the Greek text the Greek word
"ho" which can be translated into English as "the"
appears before the word "lawlessness."
For some Bible teachers, this means that John had a particular form
of lawlessness in mind, not lawlessness in a general sense.
It is "the" lawlessness.
What that particular lawlessness would have been might be debatable.
Some suggest that this particular lawlessness might be the sin that
leads to death that we will see, in 1 John 5:16.
I will talk more about this, in the following verses and when we get
to 1 John 5:16. Whatever the
case, formulating a thought on the word "the" alone is dubious
Biblical interpretation. Verse
5
"You
know that he was revealed so that he might take away sins, and there is
no sin in him."
The
pronoun "he" in the phrase is in reference to Jesus.
We saw the word "revealed," back in 1 John 1:2, where I
said that the revealing of Jesus to the world was when the voice from heaven
proclaimed Jesus to be the Son of God at His water baptism.
See Luke 3:22. According
to John, as stated in verse 5, Jesus was revealed in order for Him "to
take away sin." In context,
including the context of the whole letter, "take away sin" might
well mean the removal of sin from our lives.
Remember, back in 1 John 2:1, John said that he did not want his
readers to sin. John might well
be speaking here of the process of sanctification where the believer,
through the Holy Spirit and the Word of God, little by little, has sin
removed from his life because he is more dedicated to Jesus today than he
was yesterday. Of course, all
sin will be removed from the life of the believer when he meets Jesus
face-to-face at His return to earth. Maybe
John had that in mind when he penned these words.
At that time, as John said earlier, the believer's life will be
changed into the very sinless likeness of the life of Jesus. With
a different interpretation, some understand the taking away of sin to mean
the removing of sin from the believer's account in the heavenly records
rather than from the believer's life. I
cannot discount that interpretation either.
Verse
6 "Everyone
who remains in him does not sin; everyone who sins has not seen
him or known him."
Verses
6 through 10 have caused much debate over the centuries.
What John meant by the words "everyone who remains in him does
not sin" confuses many. In
1 John 2:1, John already admitted that Christians, yes even Christians, do
sin. So what was John saying
here? The
word "remains" is better understood as "abides," as is
written in the King James Bible. The
words "lives" or "dwells" are also good words.
From the Greek text I think the word "remains" as we read
in the CSB is weak. John is
saying that the one who lives his life in Jesus, does not sin.
John
Wesley, the founder of Methodism (born 1703 - died 1791) taught that one
could reach a state of sinless perfection, although he also said that few
would ever reach that state. Many
of Wesley's followers went beyond Wesley by saying that sinless perfection
was attainable for all believers. They
called it Entire Sanctification, and, they used this verse as one of their
proof texts. The Methodist
denominations find their roots in John Wesley and his teaching.
When
you take this verse in context with 1 John 2:1 and the rest of the New
Testament, it is difficult to believe that John was thinking of sinless
perfection in this verse. Some
believe that because the words "does not sin" are in the present
tense, John had continuous sin in mind.
That is to say, a believer who lives in Jesus does not continually
sin as the heretics did. They
may commit sin from time to time but they do not live a lifestyle of sin.
That may be the case but others say it is not.
Those who say it is not say that just because a verb is in the
present tense does not always suggest it is a continuous present-time
action. For example, I might say
this. "I am removing the
dish from the sink." This
is a limited present-time action. It
is not an ongoing present-time action. I
am not always removing the dish from the sink in present time.
The
Greek verb tense of our English word "remains" is a present
participle. This puts the
emphasis on one being a full-time abider in Jesus because of his new nature
in Christ, not a part-time abider. This
is contrasting the true believer with the false believer that John has been
writing about. John
then said that "everyone who sins has not seen him or known him."
The words "who sins" in the Greek text are a present
participle. This puts the
emphasis on the fact of the one sinning being a sinner by nature, not one
who sins from time to time. The
words "has not seen" is a present tense Greek verb.
This means the sinner does not see Jesus in present time.
The
word "known" is a perfect tense Greek verb.
This means that the sinner has never known Jesus in the first place
in order to see Him in present time. For
that reason, acts of sin come naturally to him.
He can do nothing else but sin.
Over
the years, verse 6 has been interpreted in many ways.
There are as many interpretations of this verse as there are
interpreters. You might well
have your own views on how to understand what John is saying here.
Review John
distinguished between those who are true children of God and those who are
not true children of God. This
distinction is seen in how one loves his brothers and sisters in Christ.
The distinction is also seen in one's relationship to sin in his
life. According
to John, the real Christian will purify himself from his sin.
He understands that he, with the help of the Holy Spirit and God's
Word, is able to remove sin from his life.
Present-day
Implications Verse
6 has been debated for centuries. We
may never come to a consensus on what John meant.
I
admit, as many do, that this is a difficult passage to interpret.
It is clear to me, both from experience and from 1 John 2:1 and other
such passages, that Christians can and do sin.
As a Christian, this is something to which you must admit.
Once admitting to your sins as a Christian, you must also admit that
you are responsible, with the help of the Holy Spirit and the written Word
of God found in the Bible, to purify yourself from sin.
This is something that is often overlooked in the life of the
western-world Christian these days.
In decades past it was not overlooked.
The problem in the past was that purifying one's self from sin was
very much a matter of legalism. It
was a matter of obeying what were understood to be the Biblical rules as
well as church rules. Obeying
rules, no matter which rules, purifies no one from sin.
We, thus, have gone from one extreme to another when it comes to the
concept of sin in the life of a believer.
We have gone from purifying ourselves from sin in a Biblically wrong
way to not even considering we need to be purified from sin. The
question concerning whether you, as a born-again believer, can commit sin,
is a question you may need to think more about.
One thing I know is that true Christians do sin, but they do not live
a lifestyle of sin. I am sure of
that. Sin, therefore, must be
dealt with in our lives. It also
cannot be ignored in our preaching from the pulpit, as is often the case
these days. 1
John 3:7 - 10 The
Text 7
- Children, let no one deceive you. The one who does what is right is
righteous, just as he is righteous. 8 The
one who commits] sin is of the devil, for the devil has
sinned from the beginning. The
Son of God was revealed for this purpose: to destroy the devil’s
works. 9 Everyone
who has been born of God does not sin, because his seed remains
in him; he is not able to sin, because he has been born of God. 10 This
is how God’s children and the devil’s children become obvious. Whoever
does not do what is right is not of God, especially the one who does not
love his brother or sister. My
Commentary Verse
7 "Children,
let no one deceive you. The one who does what is right is righteous, just as
he is righteous." John
called his readers children, as he has been doing all along. They
are his children in the Lord. They
are not his biological children. As
he stated here, he does not want his children in the Lord to be deceived.
That only makes since. John
has a pastor's heart for these people. You
will recall that, in 1 John 1:8, John said the heretics of his day were
deceived, and they were attempting to influence John's children in the Lord.
He certainly did not want his believing readers to be deceived by the
deceiving heretics. The
words "does what is right is righteous" are not difficult to
figure out. The words "the
one who does" in "the one who does what is right" are a
present Greek participle. Again,
John was talking about one being a continual doer of right, by virtue of the
fact that he is a new creation in Christ.
He continues to do right because a doer of right is who he is.
He is not one who only does right occasionally.
One who lives a life of righteousness is righteous.
That is easy to understand. The
next phrase may not be as easy to understand.
The
words "just as he is righteous" tell us that the habitually
righteous one is just like God Himself is righteous.
The difficulty comes because the righteous human being, unlike God,
does sin, as John stated, in 1 John 2:1.
In this sense of the word, the righteous human is not exactly like
the righteous God. Yes, God has
declared the true believer to be righteous, just as He Himself is righteous,
but, I do not believe this is what John is talking about here.
This further complicates what these few verses really mean.
Verse
8 "The
one who commits sin is of the devil, for the devil has sinned from the
beginning. The Son of God was
revealed for this purpose: to destroy the devil’s works." The
words "the one who commits," in verse 8, are a present Greek
participle. John is talking
about the habitual sinner here, not the Christian who sins occasionally.
He habitually sins because he is a sinner by nature.
It is this person who is of, or belongs to, the devil.
The Christian does not belong to the devil.
He belongs to God. John
gives yet another reason why Jesus, the Son of God, was revealed.
This revelation took place at Jesus' water baptism when the voice
from heaven confirmed Him to be the Son of God.
See Luke 3:22. According
to John, in this verse of his letter, Jesus was revealed to destroy the
works of the devil. Satan's
final destruction is seen, in Revelation 20:7 through 10, when he is thrown
into the This
question could be asked. While
on earth, or while on the cross, or, at His resurrection, did Jesus destroy
the works of the devil? I
believe, as with all of salvation, the work of Jesus is an ongoing process.
The cross of Christ and the resurrection are steps in the process of
destroying the works of the devil. Look
at what Paul said, in 1 Corinthians 15:24.
He said this: "Then
comes the end, when he [Jesus] hands over the kingdom to God the Father,
when he [Jesus] abolishes all rule and all authority and power." According
to Paul, the devil and his agents will not be utterly destroyed until the
future time when Jesus abolishes the devil and his followers.
Verse
9 "Everyone
who has been born of God does not sin, because his seed remains in him; he
is not able to sin, because he has been born of God." If
you thought verse 6 was confusing, verse 9 is even more confusing. For
as many interpreters of this verse there are, there are just as many
interpretations. First
of all, I point out the words "born of God."
These words always remind me of, John 3, verses 3 to 5, where Jesus
spoke about being born again. When
one is born again, he is born again of the Holy Spirit.
That is to say, when the Holy Spirit comes into a person's life, that
person is born again as a new creation in Christ.
He is not the person he once was.
In actuality, he has just undergone a second birth, a spiritual
birth, which the non-believer knows nothing about.
Paul, in 2 Corinthians 5:17 put it this way. "Therefore,
if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation;
the old has passed away, and see, the new has
come!" Note
the word "seed" (Greek "sperma"), in 1 John 3:9.
I believe the seed is the Holy Spirit, who enters the life of one in
the process of this second birth. The
words "who has been born" is a perfect tense Greek participle.
This means that the true Christian is a "born-again one."
The emphasis is on being one who is born again, not on doing things
that born-again people should do. John
said that the born-again one does not sin.
Here again is a difficult phrase.
Why does the born-again one not sin?
John said that it is because the seed, or Holy Spirit, lives in him.
As a matter of fact, such a person "is not able to sin,"
according to John. The verb
"not able" is a present tense indicative verb.
The indicative part of this verb means that the born-again one, in
all certainty, just does not sin. Let
us see what verse 10 says before we attempt to draw any conclusions from
these verses. Verse
10 "This
is how God’s children and the devil’s children become obvious. Whoever
does not do what is right is not of God, especially the one who does not
love his brother or sister."
Because
the words "does not do" are a Greek present participle, John is
saying that the habitual sinner who consistently does wrong is of the devil.
He said that is an obvious conclusion.
It is just a fact. That
is not difficult to understand. John
specified one type of wrong-doing here in this verse, and that is not loving
one's brothers or sisters in Christ. The
false believers in John's day left the fellowship of the Christian
community, as we saw, in 1 John 2:18 and 19.
I think John was alluding to that here.
They left the Body of Christ, so they cannot be true believers.
They did not just leave one congregation to join another as is
common-place today. They left
the church, the Body of Christ, and if you leave the Body of Christ, by
implication, you leave Christ. If
you remember, in 1 John 2:18 and 19, John said that these false believers
were never real members of the Body of Christ in the first place, so, in the
truest sense of the word, these people were never Christians in the first
place. They were never members
of the church, so, in that sense of the word, they could never leave the
church or Christ.
So
how do we understand this section? On
the surface, John seems to have said that a true Christian, who lives his
life in Jesus, cannot sin. How
can that be true when, back in 1 John 2:1, he admitted that a true believer
can sin? I am not convinced that
we can answer these questions in a way that would satisfy John if he were
with us today. We certainly have
to put this section in context with all of what John wrote in this letter,
and then, put it in context of the whole Bible.
One
of the main interpretations of this passage is that because John has been
speaking in the present tense, many say that he was saying that a true
Christian cannot continually live a lifestyle of sin, and that may be the
correct view. However, there is
a problem with this view. Just
because something is in the present tense does not mean it is a continuous
present action, as in the example I gave earlier. If I say; "I am
taking the dish out of the sink," that is a limited-time present-tense
action. I am not continually
taking the dish out of the sink. Another
interesting view is that because of the Greek word "ho"
("the" in English) that is used in a few places in this section in
reference to sin and lawlessness, John had a specific sin in mind.
He was not thinking of sin in general.
In other words, Christians cannot commit "the sin,"
whatever "the sin" is. In
1 John 5:16, John said that there is a sin that leads to death.
This might well be "the sin" he had in mind here.
John does not say what "the sin" is.
That would be left to us to figure out.
Review
One
thing we learn for sure in this passage is this.
One who habitually lives a lifestyle of sin is of the devil.
One who by his new nature in Christ and who lives a life of
righteousness is of God. Another
thing we learn for sure from this section in 1 John is that Jesus came to
destroy the works of the devil. Satan's
works, as of now, have not been completely destroyed and they will not be
completely destroyed until the day he is thrown into the "The
devil who deceived them was thrown into the lake of fire and sulfur where
the beast and the false prophet are, and they will be tormented day and
night forever and ever." Earlier
in this commentary I pointed out that salvation, in terms of the individual,
and also, in the broadest sense of the word, is viewed in three verb tenses
throughout the Bible. That is to say, we were saved.
We are being saved. We
will be saved. This view of
progressive salvation includes the destruction of Satan as well.
That is to say, Satan has been defeated.
He is being defeated. He
will be defeated. Concerning
John's statement that one born of the Spirit cannot sin, we have many
debatable answers. At the
moment, and I might change my mind, I view this as one who is born of God
does not live a lifestyle of habitual sin.
Present-day
implications If
you are one who, although sins at times, lives a life of righteousness, you
can know for sure that you are a true Christian.
That is the character trait of a real Christian seen in this section
of 1 John. In contrast to your
righteous lifestyle, those who live a life of sin are not a part of God's
family. That is just a factual
matter, and as John does, there is nothing wrong with judging such a person
to be a fake Christian. John
said that Jesus came to destroy the works of the devil.
We should note that it is Jesus, not us, who will ultimately destroy
the works of Satan and Satan himself. Many
Christians believe they can bind Satan and destroy his works by their
positive confession of faith, and by their commands to send him to hell.
I question that thinking and practice.
The devil will be with us until the day comes when he is thrown into
the If
you read Ephesian 6:10 through 18 you will note what Paul said about our
fight with the devil and his allies. Nowhere
does he say that we will defeat the devil for good.
He said that we must put on the full armour of God just to be able
"to stand" against his attacks.
Jesus, not us, will eventually destroy the works of Satan.
If you read Ephesians 6 closely, you will note that our fight against
the satanic forces is defensive in nature.
It is not offensive in nature, something many Christians do not
understand. 1
John 3:11 - 20 The
Text 11
- For this is the message you have heard from the beginning: We should love
one another, 12 unlike
Cain, who was of the evil one and murdered his brother.
And why did he murder him? Because his deeds were evil, and his
brother’s were righteous. 13 Do
not be surprised, brothers and sisters, if the world hates you. 14 We
know that we have passed from death to life because we love our brothers and
sisters. The one who does not
love remains in death. 15 Everyone
who hates his brother or sister is a murderer, and you know that
no murderer has eternal life residing in him. 16 This
is how we have come to know love: He laid down his life for us.
We should also lay down our lives for our brothers and sisters. 17 If
anyone has this world’s goods and sees a fellow believer in need but
withholds compassion from him — how does God’s love reside in him?
18 Little
children, let us not love in word or speech, but in action and in truth.
19 This is
how we will know that we belong to the truth and will reassure our
hearts before him 20 whenever
our hearts condemn us; for God is greater than our hearts, and he knows all
things. My
Commentary Verse
11 "For
this is the message you have heard from the beginning: We should love one
another," John
spoke of "the message" these people had heard "from the
beginning." As I pointed
out in my comment, on 1 John 1:5, our English word "message" is
translated from the Greek word "aggellia," which implies that the
message must be spoken in order to be a valid message.
It is what the apostle Paul wrote about, in Romans 10:14.
He wrote this: "How,
then, can they call on him they have not believed in?
And how can they believe without hearing about him?
And how can they hear without a preacher?" The
fact of the matter is that if the message of the gospel is not verbalized,
it has no effect. It must be
spoken in order to be accepted, believed, and implemented into one's life.
John's readers did hear the message in times past. As
John said, they heard it in the beginning days when John and others
proclaimed the message of the gospel to them.
Part
of the gospel message that John and others preached was that the new
believers in Jesus should "love one another."
The love that Jesus lavished on His followers is the love, the agape
love, sacrificial love, that they should lavish on one another.
This would make Jesus' statement come true in the Christian community
in which John's readers lived. Jesus
spoke of this corporate expression of love.
John 13:35 says this: "By
this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one
another." Without
this love being visibly displayed among those in the community of believers,
the message of the gospel will not be clearly heard nor seen by those to
whom we speak it. It is for this
reason that much of the church's effectiveness to win people to Jesus has
been impaired. Those in the
church have not demonstrated this sacrificial love to each other in order
for the culture around them to see. It
has hurt the church's responsibility as Jesus’ representative to its
surrounding culture. Verse
12 "...
unlike Cain, who was of the evil one and murdered his brother.
And why did he murder him? Because
his deeds were evil, and his brother’s were righteous." John
compared those who do not love one another with Cain.
We have already noted that the ones who did not love one another in
John's day were the heretics who claimed to have this love.
1 John 2:18 and 19 tell us that they left the church, demonstrating
their lack of genuine love. John
did go on to say that these false believers left the church because, in
fact, they were not true Christians in the first place.
They were not true members of the Body of Christ.
Simply attending meetings does not mean that one is a part of the
Body of Christ. Simply having
some kind of fellowship, but not the Biblical fellowship of sharing one's
life with others, makes no one a true member of the Body of Christ.
It is the Holy Spirit who lives in the believer who makes the
believer a member of the true church, as Paul said, in 1 Corinthians 12:13.
"For
we were all baptized by one Spirit into one body —
whether Jews or Greeks, whether slaves or free —
and we were all given one Spirit to drink." The
word "baptized" in Paul's statement means "immersed."
Paul was not writing about water baptism.
He was writing about being immersed into the Body of Christ, or as I
say it, "being immersed into the lives of those to whom Jesus has
joined you in the Body of Christ."
John's
comment in some respects is a commentary on the life of Cain.
According to John, Cain was of the "evil one."
The evil one is in reference to Satan.
Did Cain actually realize that he followed Satan's lead?
Could you say that he was an adherent of the devil?
That is difficult to know for sure, but it is an interesting thought
to consider, even though we may not have enough information to make a valid
conclusion. Whether he knew he
was following the devil or not, he was acting devilish.
If
Cain was inherently evil then all he did would have been evil, which is seen
in the killing of his brother. This
makes it clear to me that even in this very early stage of history, and just
how early in history it was is questionable, evil was well entrenched in the
human condition. John
said the reason for this murder was because Cain's works were evil and
Abel's were good. This suggests
that all that Cain did was motivated by evil and seeing his brother's good
works would have irritated him immensely.
This might suggest that at the very core of who Cain was, he was
evil. Verse
13 "Do
not be surprised, brothers and sisters, if the world hates you." Note,
here, that John was calling his readers "brothers and sisters."
This tells us that he is definitely writing to Christians.
We should also note, as I have noted before, that there is no
corresponding Greek word for our English word "sisters" in the
original Greek text. The CSB
version of the Bible is a gender-neutral Bible.
For this reason the word "sisters" is inserted into the
English translation to make the point that John had both men and women in
mind when he penned this letter. John
wanted his readers to remember, and I am sure they already knew this, that
the world, or their surrounding culture, would hate them.
This is something that Jesus told John and his associates some sixty
or more years earlier. John
15:18 and 19 say this: "If
the world hates you, understand that it hated
me before it hated you. If you
were of the world, the world would love you as its own.
However, because you are not of the world, but I have chosen you out
of it, the world hates you."
The
true Christian belongs to Jesus and His Kingdom, not to the kingdoms or the
cultures of men. It is only
natural to love your own. The
world loves those who are of the world.
Beyond that, there is a good chance those in the world will hate
those who are not of them. Verse
14 "We
know that we have passed from death to life because we love our brothers and
sisters. The one who does not
love remains in death." John
stated another way in which his readers really knew that they were
Christians. This time he put it
in terms of passing from death unto life, and they knew they had made this
transition because of their love of their brothers and sisters in the Lord.
As a Christian, you should realize that eternal life for you has
already come because the eternal Spirit of God lives within you.
You do not inherit eternal life when you die.
You have it right now. Earthly
death is simply passing from one form of life to another form of life.
The
Greek verbs "know" and "have passed" are both Greek
perfect verbs. A perfect verb is
a completed action verb that has present day implications.
So, you could say it this way in English.
"You have come to know that you have passed from death to life
because you love your brothers and sisters."
It is clear, then, that John's readers love each other, and again,
this is sacrificial, agape, love. This
love is proof of real Christian faith in their lives, for such love is hard
to come by if you are not a born-again believer.
This is in sharp contrast to the false believers who left the
brotherhood of believers. The
Greek verb in the phrase "the one who does not love" is yet
another Greek present participle, a verb tense that John used a lot in his
letter. This means that the one
John is writing about is, by his very nature, a non-lover. Not loving, maybe
even hating, is more than doing acts of non-love.
Such a person lives in death. He
does not know what true life is all about because he does not have the
Spirit of life within him. The
Bible speaks of those who have not entered the world of eternal life as
living in death. Those people
are obviously physically alive, but they are alive without the life-giving
Spirit of God. Those living
apart from God's Spirit do not know what real life is all about, and in the
end they will live in eternal death, otherwise known as the I
explain the Verse
15
"Everyone
who hates his brother or sister is a murderer, and you know that no murderer
has eternal life residing in him." What
John said in this verse is difficult to completely understand.
The Greek verb "hates" is a present participle.
The one John wrote of here, then, was one, who by his very nature was
a hater. He did not just hate
from time to time. That is the
nature of the Greek present participle.
It is here that we have a bit of a difficulty.
The verb tense says this person is a hater.
The context suggests that he is a believer because of the phrase
"who hates his brother or sister."
John seems to suggest that this hater is a believer because of the
use of the words "brother and sister," and, I would suggest that
means brother and sister in Christ. Note
the word "murderer" that is applied to the hater.
The word "murder" is translated from the Greek word "anthropoktomos."
This word means "a person killer."
Can a Christian be a hater, and if so, also a murderer, a person
killer? To further complicate
the issue, John went on to say that the one who hates is a murderer and
"no murderer has eternal life residing in him."
This phrase suggests that the person John had in mind could not have
been a believer because if the eternal life, the Spirit of God Himself, does
not live in a person, that person cannot be a true believer.
Why would John associate the one who did not have eternal life in him
with brothers and sisters in Christ?
The
best I can conclude at this moment in time is that the one who by his very
nature hates those that "he claims" to be his brothers and sisters
in Christ, is not a real Christian. Perhaps
the real Christians even mistakenly consider him a real Christian, but his
claim to be part of the brotherhood of believers is a false claim, thus,
excluding him from the community of Christ.
It was for this reason that John, back in 1 John 2:18 and 19, said
that these haters left the church. They
left, as John said, because they were never true members in the church in
the first place.
You
might wonder how a hater, or, one who hates, is designated a murderer.
John would have acquired this idea directly from Jesus Himself.
The Old Testament command said not to kill.
Jesus redefined that command, in Matthew 5:21 and 22.
The text reads: "You
have heard that it was said to our ancestors, Do
not murder, and whoever murders will be subject to judgment.
But I tell you, everyone who is angry with his brother or sister will
be subject to judgment. Whoever insults his brother or sister, will be
subject to the court. Whoever says, 'You fool!' will be subject to
hellfire." If
you understand how Jesus redefined the law not to murder, you can easily see
why John equated hating with murder in his letter.
Jesus
made a pretty drastic statement concerning anger and murder.
All of us have probably been angry without a valid reason with
someone at some point in our lives. Is
that anger murder? Unless your
anger is righteous anger, and there is such a thing as righteous anger, then
in your heart you have committed murder, according to Jesus.
If you thought obeying the Ten Commandments was difficult, obeying
Jesus' re-interpretations of the Ten Commandments is even more difficult. What
the Old Testament Law did, or the Torah as Jews knew it, was address the
outward actions, like murder. Jesus
redefined these laws by addressing the inward sinful matter of the heart.
If one did not get angry without due cause in his heart, then he
would not commit murder. If one
did not lust after someone then one would not commit adultery.
Whereas the Law of Moses addressed outward sins, Jesus addressed the
inward sins that caused the outward sins.
Christians
are to obey Jesus, not the Law of Moses.
If you think obeying the Law of Moses is difficult, obeying Jesus is
impossible. It is for that
reason that God, through the cross of Christ, has declared the believer
righteous. Other than that,
obtaining to Jesus' righteous standard by obedience to Him is impossible,
even with our best attempts. Verse
16
"This
is how we have come to know love: He laid down his life for us. We
should also lay down our lives for our brothers and sisters." In
this verse, John said that "this is how we have come to know
love." John spoke about
knowing love in the same way we could know Jesus, or know anyone.
There are two ways to understand the word "know."
We can know about something, or, we can experience what we know.
Knowing about Jesus is not knowing Him experientially.
Knowing about love is not knowing love experientially.
It is this second knowing that John wrote about here.
If love is not lived out in actions, then one does not love.
I will comment more on this, later, as John himself comments on it
farther on in his letter. John
said that "He laid down his life for us."
The pronoun "He" is in reference to Jesus.
Jesus laid down his life for us.
The verb "laid down" is a Greek aorist verb.
An aorist verb is a one-time past-action verb.
This means that at one specific time in the past Jesus laid down His
life for us. Because this laying
down is a one time action, John would have had the cross of Christ in mind
when he penned these words. John
ends his thought, here, with "we should also lay down our lives for our
brothers and sisters." The
Greek verb tense here for "lay down" is aorist infinitive.
This verb tense is described as a "verbal noun."
That sounds complicated, but it simply means an action that has a
goal in mind." This would
mean that the action of sacrificing our lives for another would have its
intended goal in the other person who is the beneficiary of our act of love.
This describes what the love of Jesus is all about.
He loved us and His love is meant to find its intended goal in and
through our lives. Love, as they
say these days, is all about "paying it forward."
Verse
17 "If
anyone has this world’s goods and sees a fellow believer in need but
withholds compassion from him — how does God’s love reside
in him?' What
John said, here, gets down to the practicalities of sacrificial love.
The Greek word "kosmos" is translated here as
"world's" in the phrase "if anyone has this world's
goods." The word
"kosmos" is in reference to our surrounding culture.
John obviously understood that some Christians had an abundance of
material possessions that were obtained in one way or another from the
surrounding culture. I do not
believe John had a problem with people having material possessions.
The Bible does not teach that material possessions are inherently
evil, wrong, or sinful. What
John, and the Bible, teach, concerns what we do with that which we possess.
This is John's point here. If
anyone sees a brother or sister in need and has the ability to fulfill that
need, he or she must do what he or she can to help the brother or sister in
need. This is putting actions to
one's words of love. It is
demonstrating the love of Jesus, which should find its intended goal in and
through us as believers. Note
the words "withholds compassion" in this verse.
This is not a word-for-word translation of the Greek text.
If it were, our English text would read something like this.
"If anyone shuts up his bowels, how does the love of God dwell
in him?" In much of the
culture in which John lived, it was not the heart of man that was the center
of emotions. The bowels were the
center of a person's emotion. A
husband today might say this to his wife.
"I love you with all of my heart."
In John's day, at least in parts of the Verse
18 "Little
children, let us not love in word or speech, but in action and in
truth."
Again,
as I have been saying throughout this commentary, the words "little
children" refer to John's Christian readers because, he, being an old
man, viewed his readers as children in the Lord.
They were not his biological children. The
message of this verse is that anyone who claims to exhibit real love, and
again, it is agape, sacrificial love that John is writing about, must love
in both action and truth. Love
in action is easy to understand. This
simply means we must put our words of love into real actions of love, but
what does love in truth mean? That
may be more difficult to understand. I
explain "love in truth" this way.
Let us say that your son does something that is obviously wrong.
Love in truth does not hide his sin.
Love in truth does not cover up his sin.
Love in truth does not ignore his sin.
The truth of the situation is that he has sinned and he must be
accountable for his sin. That
means you must confront him with his sin in the hope that he will admit to
the sin, stop sinning, and if necessary, make amends for his sin.
Truth demands that you expose the sin.
If the sin is not exposed, and if you cover it over, you do not
express love to your son. In
fact, you have crossed the line of truth in the process of putting your love
into actions. Love can be tough
at times. Tough love means that
you do not ignore sin. If
you cross the line of Biblical truth in the process of love, you no longer
love. I believe that is what
John was writing about in this verse. Jesus
loved, but He did not love at the expense of truth.
Jesus loved Peter, but when Peter sinned, He let Peter know of his
sin. Jesus did not cross the
line of truth by ignoring Peter's denial of Him.
He confronted Peter and prayed that he would recover from his sin
with his faith intact. Luke
22:31 through 34 says this: "'Simon,
Simon, look out. Satan has asked
to sift you like wheat. But I have prayed for you that your faith may not
fail. And you, when you have
turned back, strengthen your brothers.' 'Lord,'
he [Peter] told him, 'I’m ready to go with you both to prison and to
death.' 'I
[Jesus] tell you, Peter,' he said, 'the rooster will not crow today until
you deny three times that you know me.'" We
must not only put our love into action.
We must love in accordance with the truth of God, and as the apostle
Paul said, "we must speak the truth, but when we do, we speak it in
love." Ephesians 4:15 says
this: "But
speaking the truth in love, let us grow in every way into him who is the
head — Christ."
Verse
19 "This
is how we will know that we belong to the truth and will reassure our hearts
before him ..." Note
the verb tense in "this is how we will know."
That is the future tense. "That
we belong to the truth" is present tense.
"Will reassure our hearts before him ..." is future tense.
Simply put, if we love in both action and truth in present time, we
will know and be assured in the future that our hearts are right before God.
How we love now will determine our assuredness we have in God in the
future. I am far from convinced
that Christians today think much about how their present actions play such
an important part in their future, whether the future is in this life or the
next life. The
word "heart" in this verse is translated from the Greek word
"kardia." It is from
this Greek word that we derive our English word "cardiac."
"...
whenever our hearts condemn us; for God is greater than our hearts, and he
knows all things." This
verse became real to me back in the 1970's.
I was raised in the 1950's and 1960's in the The
fact of the matter is that guilt is not a feeling.
It is the position in which one stands before God, the judge.
If you have accepted God's declaration of viewing you as righteous,
then righteous you are. The way
you feel is irrelevant. You are
righteous in the sight of God because He has declared you righteous.
What He says, goes. If
one stands before a judge and the judge has declared him to be guilty,
guilty he is, whether he feels guilty or not.
If the judge declares him innocent, innocent he is, whether he feels
innocent or not. Feelings are
irrelevant. This is what John
was getting at in this verse.
Even
though I say that feelings are irrelevant, I understand that they have both
a positive and negative influence on our lives.
The Holy Spirit and the Word of God can overcome the negative
influences of negative emotions. To
the degree, then, you allow this truth to sink into your heart, where it
forms the convictions of life whereby you live, will be the degree in which
these negative emotions will leave your life.
Concerning
the notion of staying saved by works, Paul said this, in Romans 1:17. "For
in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith, just as it
is written: The righteous will live by faith."
Paul
maintained that the just one does not only get saved by faith; he lives his
entire life by faith, or, by trusting his life with Jesus. Review
John
said a lot, in this portion of his letter, but the theme of love is what
stands out the most. In the
midst of the confusion and disruption the heretics would have brought to
John's Christian readers, maintaining sacrificial love in the midst of a
church split was not only important, but necessary to the effectiveness of
the church. Emotions might well
have been running high among the believers, which would have further
complicated matters in the midst of the confusion.
Sacrificial
love in the midst of turmoil would have to have been exhibited in both
action and truth just to maintain a good measure of unity in the church.
Such love does not come easy to most of us because it is not inherent
in whom we are. By nature, the
human condition is unloving, even evil, at its core.
The prophet Jeremiah made that clear centuries ago.
Jeremiah 17:9 says this: "The
heart is more deceitful than anything else, and
incurable — who can understand it?" Present-day
Implications It
is a sad commentary on the church, but throughout history the church has not
exhibited the sacrificial love that John maintained it should exhibit.
Congregational splits over secondary Biblical issues, personality
differences, and personal preferences, show that sacrificial love has been
hard to come by. The fact
remains, if we, the church, are to ever be what we have been called to be,
we must demonstrate sacrificial love, and in the process, we cannot deny the
truth of Scripture. John
was speaking about love in the Christian community.
The separation that took place in the community which John addressed
was over primary elements of the gospel, over who Jesus was and what
constituted sin. In the process
of love, John would not compromise on such primary issues of the gospel.
He would stand on the side of truth, and as we say today, "let
the chips fall where they may." If
that caused a split, then so be it. One
must love, but one cannot compromise or ignore the truth in an attempt to
love. The
fact that John pointed out that there were those who claimed to be part of
the church but were in fact by their very nature hating murderers tells me
that not all who claim to be part of the church are valid members of the
true church. I conclude, then,
that in today's church, or, what is commonly called church, not all those
who consider themselves part of the church are part of the church. They
are not born of God. They have
not received the Holy Spirit into their lives to make them true members of
the Body of Christ. In
light of what John has said, in this section, can a true Christian hate?
I believe he can. Hating
is a sin, and Christians do sin, but, a true Christian is no longer a hater
by his very nature. He is in
fact a new creation in Christ. He
is not what he once was. He has
been transformed by the Holy Spirit into someone he never was before.
For this reason the true Christian cannot live a lifestyle of hatred.
This is something that I believe few Christians understand today.
It
is my belief that our modern-day church has minimized what being a Christian
is. It has dumbed it down to
simple mental agreement to the historic Jesus.
Then, when it comes to sin in one's life, that sin does not seem to
matter as it once did in years past. Yes,
Christians sin, but, John has made it clear throughout his letter, that we
must move on towards a sanctified life.
A
true believer is different from a non-believer.
When we minimize this fact, we distort the concept of what a true
Christian is. We water down the
fact that the Christian is a new creation in Christ, to the degree that it
causes me to question the salvation of those who do not exhibit the reality
of a new eternal state.
(1
John 3:21 - 24) The
Text 21
- Dear friends, if our hearts don’t condemn us, we have confidence before
God 22 and
receive whatever we ask from him because we keep his commands and do
what is pleasing in his sight. 23 Now
this is his command: that we believe in the name of his Son Jesus
Christ, and love one another as he commanded us. 24 The
one who keeps his commands remains in him, and he in him. And
the way we know that he remains in us is from the Spirit he has
given us. My
Commentary Verse
21 "Dear
friends, if our hearts don’t condemn us, we have confidence before God
..." Note,
here, that John did not call his readers "little children" or
"children," as he has been doing throughout his letter.
Instead, he calls his readers "dear friends."
The words "dear friends" are translated from the Greek word
"agapetos." You will
note that the word "agapetos" finds its roots in the Greek word
"agape," meaning, "sacrificial love.”
I, therefore, would translate "agapetos" as "dearly
beloved" or "dearly loved" instead of "dear
friends." "Dearly
loved," in my opinion, is a stronger phrase that better reflects the
meaning of "agapetos," which incorporates the idea of selfless
love. I believe that John
thought his readers to be more than friends, especially more than casual
friends. They were those he
would sacrifice himself for. In
the last section we noted that, as Christians, sometimes our hearts condemn
us, when in fact we should not feel condemned.
Any feeling of condemnation is not a matter of the actual way in
which God views us. God does not
condemn the believers. We have
been set free from all of that. If
we feel condemned, that feeling does not represent the mind of God.
It has no relevance to the position in which we stand before God,
which is as an innocent person. The
feeling of condemnation is a feeling that needs to be removed from our
lives, and that is done by a proper understanding of the position in which
we stand before God. That
position is this: as Christians, we have been proclaimed innocent of all
charges of sin that were rightly due us.
God, the Judge, has declared us totally righteous and innocent.
The degree to which we know and understand this fact, will be the
degree to which we will have full trust and confidence in God.
It is to that degree that we will free ourselves from feelings
associated with condemnation. With
this full confidence, we can live the life of a Christian that we have been
called to live. Any doubts about
our declared innocence will surely hinder us from living the Christian life
successfully. Doubts will
prevent us from both doing God's will and being the representatives to our
culture that we have been called to be. The
way in which we can free ourselves from unwanted feelings of condemnation is
to study the Word of God and allow the Holy Spirit to sink God's truth into
our minds and into our hearts. Only
then can these unwanted and unhealthy feelings leave us for good.
After
writing a whole chapter on his sinful nature, a sinful nature that was
present in his life, the apostle Paul said that he was not in a place of
condemnation before His Lord. Romans
8:1 and 2 say this: "Therefore,
there is now no condemnation for those in Christ Jesus, because the law of
the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and
death." Paul
was not overcome with a spirit of condemnation.
If he was, he could not have been the effective witness for Jesus
that he was. He understood that
a sinful nature was part of who he was, but, he also understood that he was
in fact a new creation in Christ (2 Corinthians 5;17). Verse
22 "...
and receive whatever we ask from him because we keep his commands and
do what is pleasing in his sight." The
phrase "receive whatever we ask from Him" has been abused and
misunderstood by many over the years. Does
this mean that whatever our hearts feel like asking God for, we can expect
to receive? The answer is
clearly, "no." There
are a few qualifying factors that we need to consider when thinking about
asking Jesus for things. Two
qualifying factors are stated in this verse.
They are: keeping God's commands, and doing the things that please
Him. If these factors are
established in our lives, I sincerely doubt that we will be asking for
things that are based on selfishness and personal gain.
In
John 14:13, John gives another qualifying factor concerning the requests we
make to God. The verse reads:
"Whatever
you ask in my name, I will do it so that the Father may be glorified in the
Son." In
this passage, John said that whatever we ask for must be asked in the
"name of Jesus." The
phrase "in the name of Jesus" is more than a phrase we attach to
the end of a prayer. We cannot
just attach that phrase to a request and expect to receive that for which we
have asked. In the name of Jesus
addresses the very nature of Jesus. It
is more than the name He was given on earth.
Our mission on earth as Christians is to represent and reflect Jesus
to our surrounding culture. We
represent Jesus' good name. All
we do as Christians is done in the name of Jesus.
All, not some, of what we do as Christians, we do as Jesus
ambassadors. We, thus, ask for
things that will clearly help us in our mission to represent and reflect
Jesus to the culture in which we live. We
can expect God to give us those things that will help us to fulfill our
mission. If God wants to give us
anything beyond what will help us accomplish His will, then that is His
choice, not our choice. John
15:7 states another qualifying factor when it comes to asking God for
things. That verse reads: "If
you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you want and it
will be done for you." The
word "remains" in this verse means "to live."
This expresses one having a good, and working, relationship with
Jesus. If we have this good, and
working, relationship, then we can then ask for whatever we need to
represent Jesus and His name to our culture.
Of course, if we have a good relationship with Jesus, we will, as
seen in John 14:13, ask according to His will.
A proper hermeneutical approach to Bible study shows us how to understand what John said, here, in his letter. There are certain qualifications, found in other parts of the New Testament, that must be met before we think about asking God for anything. Our requests are predicated on God's will, not our will. We will ask for those things that will help us do His will. We will not ask for things that distract us from doing His will, or that feed our hedonistic tendencies. Verse
23 "Now
this is his command: that we believe in the name of his Son Jesus
Christ, and love one another as he commanded us." What
John said, in this verse, is not a suggestion.
It is something that God requires of all Christians.
The requirement is to "believe in the name of Jesus
Christ." The Greek verb
"pisteuo," meaning "to trust," is present tense in this
verse. The command is to trust
in the name of Jesus, that is to say, right now we must trust in
Jesus. When
using the words "in the name of Jesus," John was saying that we
trust, not just what Jesus can do for us, but we trust in who He is.
This is fundamental to being a real Christian.
Trusting our lives in the care of Jesus, as a person, is what
salvation is all about. Our
English word "believe," if understood as "giving mental
assent to" or as simply "believing in one's mind," does not
portray the meaning of John's statement.
John said that we must trust our lives with Jesus, not simply believe
in His existence. All of the
satanic world believes that Jesus was, and still is, divine.
James 2:19 says this: "You
believe that God is one. Good! Even the demons believe —
and they shudder." The
second part of this command that John addressed was to love one another.
Again, John used the Greek word "agape" that is translated
into English as "love." He
has been using this word, meaning "sacrificial love," all the way
through his letter. John
would have heard this two-fold command from the lips of Jesus Himself.
Matthew 22:37 through 39 says this: "He
[Jesus] said to him, 'Love the Lord your God with all your heart,
with all your soul, and with all your mind. This
is the greatest and most important command. The
second is like it: Love your neighbor as yourself." I
am sure that you can see the similarity in what both John and Jesus said.
Verse
24 "The
one who keeps his commands remains in him, and he in him. And
the way we know that he remains in us is from the Spirit he has
given us." The
words "the one who keeps" in the phrase "the one who keeps
His commands" are a present Greek participle.
This puts the emphasis on one being a present-day, full-time, keeper
of God's commands. He does not
just keep the commands from time to time.
He, by his new nature in Christ, is a command-keeper.
If that is who you are, then, it is obvious that Jesus will abide, or
remain, in you and you in Him. Some
people believe that this verse suggests the possibility that one can lose
his salvation. I do not
believe John is addressing the doctrine of eternal security in this verse.
I do not think that John had in mind the possibility of losing one's
salvation when he penned these words. If
you have become a new creation in Christ, as Paul, in 2 Corinthians 5:17
said a real Christian is, then you are that new creation, and by virtue of
that fact, you are in Jesus and He is in you.
The
last part of this verse is important. John
said that the "way we know that he remains in us" is because of
the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.
If you are a born-again believer, and there is no other kind of true
believer, it is because the Holy Spirit lives in you.
If the Holy Spirit does not live in you, then you are not born again.
If you do not know that He lives in you, then maybe He does not live
in you and you are not a real Christian.
This is an important issue that must be settled in your life.
The
presence of the Holy Spirit in one's life is the validating seal from God
that you are a real Christian, that God, through His Spirit, is in you and
you are in Him. The apostle Paul
confirmed this, in Ephesians 1:13. The
text says this: "In
him you also were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit when you heard the
word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and when you believed." The
word "sealed" in Paul's statement should not be understood in
terms of glue. That is to say,
the Holy Spirit is not some kind of glue that keeps you saved.
The seal spoken of by Paul is a validating seal.
It is like a seal a lawyer would place on a document to prove its
validity. The Holy Spirit's
presence in the life of the believer is the heavenly seal that validates one
being a Christian.
Review
The
theme of love runs all the way through John's letter, as is also seen in
this section. A true believer is
one who has the Holy Spirit in his life, keeps Jesus' commands, and loves
the brotherhood of the believers. With
these attributes functional in the believer, the believer can ask for
anything that would help his God-given mission to represent Jesus to those
in the culture in which he lives.
Present-day
Implications The
character trait of a real Christian seen here is that he or she has the Holy
Spirit living within him or her. That
being the case, by virtue of the fact that the believer is a brand new
creation, he or she will love the brotherhood of believers.
That is a natural outcome of this new state of being.
It
is important to understand, as John pointed out here and in his gospel
account, that we as Christians can ask things from God.
We, however, must ask in accordance with God's will.
In our present-day, hedonistic, culture that asks for material
prosperity to be heaped upon us, we must know that such requests are
unbiblical. It is my thinking
that one of the biggest unbiblical influences on western-world Christianity
these days is the Prosperity Movement. Believing
that God wants to make the Christian the most materially prosperous people
in the world is not a product of Biblical thinking.
It is a product of the hedonistic culture in which we live.
It is, sad to say, an unholy influence on God's holy church.
It is, also, a most detrimental doctrine in the western-world church
these days. It is a cancer that
is stifling the mission of the church. The
Prosperity Gospel, then, is a mixture of our secular culture and Biblical
culture, not unlike the mixture between the pagan culture and the Christian
culture that John was refuting throughout this letter.
If John was alive today, I think he would have some very harsh words
to say about the Prosperity Gospel that is being taught by Prosperity
teachers. (1
John 4:1 - 6) The
Text 1 - Dear friends, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see if they are from God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world. 2 This is how you know the Spirit of God: Every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God, 3 but every spirit that does not confess Jesus is not from God. This is the spirit of the antichrist, which you have heard is coming; even now it is already in the world. 4 You are from God, little children, and you have conquered them, because the one who is in you is greater than the one who is in the world. 5 They are from the world. Therefore what they say is from the world, and the world listens to them. 6 We are from God. Anyone who knows God listens to us; anyone who is not from God does not listen to us. This is how we know the Spirit of truth and the spirit of deception. My
Commentary Verse
1
"Dear
friends, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see if
they are from God, because many false prophets have gone out into the
world." As
in the last section of John's letter, John called his readers dear friends,
not children as he had been calling them.
I prefer the term "dearly beloved," as in some of the older
versions of the Bible, because it better reflects the Greek word
"agapetos" that the CSB translates as "dear friends."
Agapetos suggests a friendship that is based on mutual sacrificial
love. In this sense of the word,
I believe John viewed his readers as those for whom he would sacrifice his
life. I think that is more than
friendship as we might understand friendship today. Note
the words "spirits," in this verse.
Our English word "spirit" is translated from the Greek word
"pneuma." At its core,
this word means, "breathe," "breath," "wind,"
or something similar. The New
Testament usage of this word can be seen in a number of ways.
In the New Testament, "pneuma" is used in reference to
breath, breathe, wind, angels, demons, the Holy Spirit, and the spirit of
men and women. In what sense of
the word did John use it in this verse? There
are two possible answers to the above question.
The word "spirit" is either in reference to the spirit of
man or to demonic spirits, or, perhaps to both.
There is such a thing as the spirit of a person.
For example, we as human beings often speak from our own spirit,
despite the fact that we claim to speak from the influence of the Holy
Spirit. Maybe John had this
meaning of spirit in mind when he penned these words.
On the other hand, the reference to the spirit of the antichrist may
suggest otherwise. Revelation
13:2 tells us that, the dragon, which is Satan, gave the beast, which is the
antichrist, its power. The
antichrist either was heavily influenced by Satan, or, like Judas at the
Last Supper, Satan entered the antichrist.
I believe the last option to be the case.
If, then, the spirits John wrote about, in verse 1, are associated
with the spirit of the antichrist, then the spirits he was referencing are
demonic spirits.
The
verbs "do not believe" and "test" in this verse are
present tense imperative Greek verbs. This
means that what John said here was not a suggestion.
Imperative means it was a command.
John's readers must test every spirit, or, everyone speaking from a
spirit, to see if they are in fact speaking on behalf of God.
John gave this command because his readers had to test the spirits of
the heretics that were attempting to draw the church away from faith in
Jesus. They also had to test the
heresies these heretics were teaching. Testing
both people and their teaching is important in the church.
One of the gifts of the Holy Spirit given to members of the church is
the gift of discerning of spirits, as seen in 1 Corinthians 12:10.
Involved
in the process of testing, or discerning, is judging, something our
western-world, antichrist, culture frowns upon as being judgmental.
In Biblical terms, judging is part of the Christian life, as is
clearly seen here in this verse. We
do, however, make a righteous judgment and not a judgment based on
appearance, as Jesus commanded us, in John 7:24.
That verse reads: "Stop
judging according to outward appearances; rather judge according to
righteous judgment." I
believe I can safely say that Jesus told us how to judge, in the above
statement. He did not tell us
that we must not judge. The
verb "do not believe," in verse 1 of chapter 4, is translated from
the Greek word "pisteuo," and means, "do not trust."
The simple Biblical fact is that we are not to trust everything we
hear without testing its validity. Christians
are not to be naive. We are to be sufficiently educated so that we can make
a clear-minded, Biblically-based, judgment call. Without such a discerning
spirit, we will inevitably get sidetracked in our Christian faith.
John
continued by saying that "many false prophets have gone out into the
world." I would suggest
that wherever there is a true prophet or preacher of the gospel there is
most likely a false prophet or preacher of the gospel.
This was certainly the case in John's day.
Right from the beginning of church history there have always been
false teaching and false teachers. It
will be that way until the day comes when Jesus puts an end to all kinds of
falseness. The fact that false
teaching and false teachers will remain with us until Jesus returns should
not be a discouragement to us. We
should just realize that this is our present reality and follow John's
instructions to test the spirits as we move on with our mission.
We must realize that we live in a conflicted culture that battles
between that which is true and that which is false.
Verse
2 "This
is how you know the Spirit of God: Every spirit that confesses that Jesus
Christ has come in the flesh is from God." In
this verse, John stated the fundamental way we are to test the spirits to
see if they are from God. The
word "confess" is important in the process of testing.
The word "confess" is translated from the Greek word
"homologeo." This word
is made up of two Greek words. "Homo"
means "the same" and "logeo" means "to speak."
Confessing as it pertains to the Christian means this: we are to
speak the same things God speaks. In
other words, confession is agreeing with God on all matters.
The
specific thing John said, here, that we must agree with God on is the nature
and essence of who Jesus is. John
said that every spirit, or, everyone speaking from a spirit, must agree with
God that Jesus, the Christ, has come to earth in the flesh.
In other words, anyone who says that Jesus is not divine, and not God
in a human body, is speaking from a wrong and false spirit.
That spirit would either be one's own spirit or a demonic spirit. The
verb "has come" in the phrase "has come in the flesh" is
extremely important when thinking of Jesus being divine, or God in a human
form. The verb "has
come" is a Greek perfect participle.
A perfect verb is a past action that has present implications.
A participle is both a noun and a verb; is both an action word and a
person, place, or thing. A
participle puts the emphasis on one not just doing a certain action from
time to time, but on one who, by his very nature exhibits the action all of
the time. So how does this
perfect participle apply to Jesus? Jesus'
incarnation at His conception in Mary's womb was a divine, one-time, action.
That one-time divine action of being conceived in Mary's womb as God
in human form is still real in present time.
The fact that this verb tense is a perfect participle means that
right now, and for all time, Jesus is divine.
It is not that He exhibited some divine character traits.
Jesus is, right now and forever will be, by His very nature, God in
whatever form He presently is or will be.
Another
point that needs consideration is this: the heretics believed that Jesus was
just a man that, when water-baptized, received the Holy Spirit upon his
life. Then, just before Jesus
died, the Spirit, or the Christ spirit as they called it, left Him.
What John taught here was in direct contrast to what the heretics
taught. Jesus and the Holy
Spirit, in one sense of the word, are one.
The terms "Spirit
of Jesus"
and "Spirit
of Christ"
are equated with the Holy Spirit in the New Testament.
Jesus has always been divine and He always will be divine, something
that contradicted the false claims of the heretics concerning the nature and
essence of Jesus.
Verse
3 "...
but every spirit that does not confess Jesus is not from God. This
is the spirit of the antichrist, which you have heard is coming; even
now it is already in the world." Again,
the word "confess," in this verse, must be understood in terms of
agreement, because that is what the Greek word "homolegeo," which
is translated as "confess,"
means. The reverse to what John said, in the last verse, is seen, in this
verse. Every spirit that does
not confess, or, does not presently agree with God that Jesus is in fact
divine, is not of God. John
differentiates between the spirit of the antichrist and the actual
antichrist that will appear on the world scene at the end of this age.
There will be a man, and he will be one who the spirit of Satan
enters, as the book of Revelation shows.
Before that day comes, the spirit of the antichrist will afflict both
the world and the church. This end-time antichrist has been given several
names in the Bible. The apostle
Paul called him the "man of sin" and the "lawless one,"
in 2 Thessalonians 2. Some Bible
teachers suggest that there are at least thirty plus different names given
to this man. One
important thing we learn, here, from John is that behind one who speaks,
whether that one is of God or of the devil, is a spirit.
John did not specifically say that it is the man or woman who does
not confess. He spoke of the
spirit that does not confess. John
is moving beyond the physical realm, into the spiritual realm that
influences the physical realm. There
is a spiritual world that exists in another dimension that few know anything
about. Verse
4
"You
are from God, little children, and you have conquered them, because the one
who is in you is greater than the one who is in the world." This
verse is a clear affirmation of the faith of John's readers.
He said, "you are from God."
This is in stark contrast to the false believers who were not from
God. There was no doubt in
John's mind that those who he called his "children" were truly
born-again believers. They were
his children in the faith. The
word "them" in the phrase "you have conquered them"
would be in reference either to the spirits of the present-day antichrists,
or, the antichrists themselves. The
verb "have conquered" is a perfect indicative Greek verb.
This means that at some prior date, his readers had conquered the
evil spirits and the antichrists they influenced, and, his readers remained
conquerors as John penned this letter. The
indicative form of this verb tells us that there were no doubts that those
to whom John wrote were conquerors, right then at that time. Just
when, or even how, John's readers conquered the evil world of the
antichrists is unknown. This is
speculative, but the fact that the antichrists, or the false believers, left
the church, might possibly be part of the conquering process.
The
reason why John's readers were able to conquer the enemy was because He who
was in them was greater than he who was in the world.
He who was in them is obviously in reference to the Holy Spirit.
Those who were in the world were probably those with the antichrist
spirit who were influenced by the prince of this world, namely, Satan.
Verse
5 "They
are from the world. Therefore
what they say is from the world, and the world listens to them." The
word "they," in this verse, would be in reference to those
possessing the spirit of antichrist. They
belonged to the surrounding sinful, even satanic, culture.
The
word "world" is translated from the Greek word "kosmos"
and should be understood in a cultural sense.
In first-century, Greco-Roman, thinking, "kosmos" meant an
orderly arranging of things. It
could be an orderly arrangement of chairs or an orderly arrangement of a
civilization. What
John said, in this verse, is not rocket science.
It is common sense. What
people speak is heavily influenced by the surrounding culture in which they
live. No matter the cultural
setting, people listen to those of their kind.
Verse
6 "We
are from God. Anyone who knows
God listens to us; anyone who is not from God does not listen to us. This
is how we know the Spirit of truth and the spirit of deception."
John
confirmed that both he and his readers were from God.
They belonged to God and their lives showed that to be true.
In the terms of John 3:1 to 5, they were born from God.
This is yet another re-affirmation that John's readers are truly
born-again-of-the-Spirit believers. This
verb "know" in the phrase "this is how we know" is a
present participle. This tells
us that John's readers were "knowers," not just people who knew.
At the core of who they were, they were then, present knowing ones,
and, such people, according to John, listen to them.
The true believer has the ability to hear from other true believers
of the things that pertain to God. If
one does not have such capability to hear and listen, he might not be a true
believer. This is in direct
contrast to the false believers, those with the spirit of antichrist and who
were not listening to John and his readers. One
who is a real knower of God, by his very new nature in Christ, will
recognize the Spirit of truth. He
is capable of discerning what is spoken from the Spirit of God and what is
spoken from a spirit of deception. Such
discernment was important in John's day and it is just as important in our
day. As
I have been saying throughout this commentary, the word "know" as
John often used it means "to personally, or intimately, know."
This is not a knowing about God, but having a personal relationship
with Him. Review John
said that not everyone who claims to speak on behalf of God is actually from
God. Those who have a personal
relationship with God have the ability to distinguish between those speaking
from the Spirit of God and those speaking from their own spirit or a demon
spirit. In some cases, as stated by Paul, in 1 Corinthians 12:10, there are
some in the Body of Christ who have a special gift from the Holy Spirit, the
gift of discernment of spirits.
The
most fundamental way in which a Christian can know if someone is speaking on
behalf of God is if that person acknowledges that Jesus has come in the
flesh. This simply means that if
a person does not believe that Jesus was God in human form while on earth
(and I might add, is God in glorified human form now) does not belong to
God, and thus cannot be trusted. If
a person does not belong to God, he cannot speak on behalf of God.
Present-day
Implications The
character trait of a Christian seen in this passage is that he has the Holy
Spirit living within him, and, is thus able to distinguish between true and
false spirits, true and false teachers, and true and false believers.
It
is my opinion that now, in 2019 as I write these words, a spirit of
deception is attacking Christians from all angles in a way that we have not
seen in the recent past. This
deception is seen in how we view the culture around us.
For example, our culture says that the homosexual lifestyle is
morally fine. According to
Scripture that is not the case, but many Christians are now siding with our
culture on this issue. Another
area of deception that is prevalent in the West today is in the world of
politics. There is fast becoming
an unholy alliance of Christian and political thought that is distorting, or
watering down, what the Bible teaches about nations and their leaders.
Christians are promoting ungodly men as if they were godly, only
because these men promote one or two of their religious convictions.
I suggest, as I believe the apostle John would say, that the
antichrist himself will promote things that sound Biblical and godly, but in
fact are not. This will
especially be the case with his relationship with the nation of Deception
is fast becoming a prevalent problem in today's world.
It is for this reason that we have no other choice but to test the
spirits, and, by so doing we make judgements.
Testing incorporates judging. There
is no way around that. Judging
is something our secular culture tells us not to do. There
is a Biblical form of judging. Jesus,
in John 7:24, said this: "Stop
judging according to outward appearances; rather judge according to
righteous judgment." Jesus
did not tell us not to judge. To
be specific, He told us not to judge by the mere appearance.
We are, however, to judge righteously, or, rightly.
We are to judge according to the facts.
This matter of judging is clearly being misunderstood in much of the
western-world, church these days.
(1
John 4:7 - 12) The
Text 7 - Dear friends, let us
love one another, because love is from God, and everyone who loves has been
born of God and knows God. 8 The one who does not love does not know God,
because God is love. 9 God’s love was revealed among us in this way:
God sent his one and only Son into the world so that we might live through
him. 10 Love consists in this: not that we loved God, but
that he loved us and sent his Son to be the atoning sacrifice for
our sins. 11 Dear friends, if God loved us in this way, we also
must love one another. 12 No one has ever seen God. If we love one
another, God remains in us and his love is made complete in us. My
Commentary Verse
7 "Dear
friends, let us love one another, because love is from God, and everyone who
loves has been born of God and knows God." Throughout
John's letter he either called his readers, children, little children, or
dear friends. We see the words
"dear friends" here, in the CSB's version of the Bible.
The Greek word "agapetos" is translated as "dear
friends" throughout 1 John in the CSB.
As I have said before, I prefer the words "dearly beloved"
over the words "dear friends," because that better reflects the
Greek word "agapelos" that implies a brotherhood of people who are
willing to express sacrificial love to one another. Our
English words "love" and "loves," in this verse and
throughout John's letter, are translated from the Greek word
"agape" or "agapeo," depending on whether its usage is a
noun or a verb. These Greek
words express "sacrificial love."
Therefore, when John said that everyone who loves is born of God, we
must understand the love that John was thinking about is the agape, selfless
love. It is God's love, which
comes from God Himself and is worked in and through the lives of the
believers. According to what
John said here, if one is not in the flow of God's love, then that one is
not born of God and is not a true Christian.
I am not saying that a Christian cannot block the flow of God's love
into his life, because he can, but that should not be the case.
The intended goal of God's love that was demonstrated in the life and
death of Jesus should find its completion in the life of the believer
flowing out to others.
The
verb "loves" in the phrase "everyone who loves" is a
Greek present participle. This
puts the emphasis on the one who expresses the sacrificial love by virtue of
who he is, rather than on the action of loving alone.
He does not simply do acts of love, but he is inherently a lover.
This is what a participle means, and we have seen John use present
participles regularly throughout his letter.
John
described the believer in this verse as being a lover by nature.
The believer became a lover because, as John said, "he has been
born of God." The verb
"has been born" is a perfect tense Greek verb.
This means that at one past moment of time, those whom John had in
mind were born of God, and, because of that past experience, were still
born-again ones, when John penned this letter.
The fact that these people were allowing God's love to come into them
and then were living out God's love in daily living, proved they were born
again of the Holy Spirit. The
words "and know" in the phrase "and know God" is a
present indicative verb. This
means, that at the moment of John's writing, these people knew God.
They had to have known God because they had His love being
demonstrated in their lives. As
is the case throughout this letter, the words "you know God" are a
re-affirmation that John's readers, despite any doubts they might have had
due to the confusion caused by the false teachers, really did know God, and
knew Him experientially.
Verse
8 "The one who does not
love does not know God, because God is love." In
verse 8, John said that "God is love."
He also said this again, in 1 John 4:16.
These three all-important Biblical words expressed a very foreign
concept in the first-century, Greco-Roman, religious culture.
In the pagan religion of the day, gods were not considered to be
loving. They were understood to
be needy, even greedy, and thus, demanded love and attention from their
adherents. If their followers
did not express acts of love, then the gods' favour would be withdrawn from
them. The
pagan gods' attitude and behaviour makes it clear that their invention was a
product of a sinful human imagination. The
pagans knew nothing else except their sinfulness.
They had no other model on which to base the invention of their gods.
In other words, the pagan gods were a mirror-image of their pagan
inventors. Pagans could not
invent a holy and loving god because they knew nothing of such character
traits. According
to John, the Christian God did not only do loving acts, He, by His very
essence, was love. This had to
have been a challenging concept for the Gentile pagans to comprehend.
It would have been so foreign to their religious culture.
"The
one who does not love," is one who is inherently not a lover by nature,
since, once again, the verb tense is a present Greek participle.
The people John had in mind, here, might have demonstrated acts of
genuine selfless love from time to time, but according to the verb tense
John used, they were not lovers by nature.
They did not possess the love from God that could be demonstrated to
others on a continual basis. They
could not have been born-again believers as John spoke about, in the last
verse. They were not lovers by
nature because they did not know God. If
they had known God, and known Him experientially, they would have
demonstrated sacrificial love based on their very loving, new nature in
Christ. That was not the case.
Anyone
who really has a personal relationship with God, or, is in the process of
developing such a relationship, knows that God, by His very nature is love.
Part of the essence of God is sacrificial love.
This is an extremely important and fundamental character trait of God
that we must know in our hearts as a burning conviction.
Too often in the past, the Verse
9 "God’s love was
revealed among us in this way: God sent his one and only Son into
the world so that we might live through him." Anyone
who is at all familiar with the New Testament will realize that what John
said, in this verse, is the same as he said previously, in John 3:16., but
he just said it in a slightly different way.
The
verb "was revealed" in the phrase "God's love was
revealed" is an aorist Greek verb.
This aorist verb is a one-time, past-action, verb.
This would mean that at one specific point in the past, God's love
was revealed. When was God's
love revealed? I believe the
next phrase answers this question for us.
God's
love was revealed "when God sent His one and only Son into the
world." When was that?
God sent His Son into the world when Jesus, God's Son, was conceived
in the womb of Mary.
Think
of God's love in this way. Jeremiah
17:9 says this: "The
heart is more deceitful than anything else, and
incurable — who can understand it?" What
Jeremiah said shows us a bit of how God views sinful humanity.
The human condition is so deceitful that we do not know how deceitful
it really is. The CSB says that
our human condition has no cure. Knowing
this, and I'm sure we do not understand the human condition as God does, it
is simply an incredible act of selfless love for God to enter sinful
humanity. This love of God did
not end when Jesus was conceived in Mary's womb.
Jesus demonstrated the selfless love of God throughout His life and
ministry as He lived among sinful humanity.
Understanding that Jesus' human nature was sinless, His existence on
earth must have been frustrating at times.
I believe you can see this frustration in the gospel accounts from
time to time. The
love of God took Jesus to his sacrificial death on the cross, which John
would speak about, in the next verse, but, the love of God in Jesus' life
did not end there either. John
1:1 tells us that prior to His incarnation, Jesus was the logos of God, and
that He was both with God and was God. As
humans, I do not think we can totally comprehend John's statement about the
nature of Jesus. In whatever
manner or form Jesus existed prior to being conceived in Mary's womb, He no
longer exists as He once did. He
has taken on a new form, or as Christians have called it, a glorified human
body. What that body exactly
looks like, I do not think we really know, but one thing we do know.
Jesus' present existence is not what it once was prior to His
incarnation in a human form. For
this reason I say that Jesus altered His very existence, His very form, for
all of eternity, and He did so, because He loved us.
This, I believe, was His ultimate sacrifice. Look
at what Romans 8:29 says. "For
those he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his
Son, so that he would be the firstborn among many brothers and sisters."
According
to Paul, Jesus now sits at the right hand of His Father, in His glorified
human form. What Jesus is
presently like, we will also be some day, because we will be like Him.
John, in 1 John 3:9, said that we will be like Jesus someday.
Paul, in Romans 8:29, told us that God has predestined, or
predetermined, that the believer will be conformed to the very likeness, or
image, of Jesus. Paul said that
Jesus is the firstborn among those who have died in faith.
As Christians we will, therefore, take on Jesus' new form.
We will have Jesus' very likeness and image. That sounds very much like Genesis 1:26 and 27, where we read that God created man in His likeness and image. As new creations in Christ, as Paul put it, in 2 Corinthians 5:17, we will eventually be made in the likeness and image of Jesus. Verse
10 "Love consists in
this: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son to
be the atoning sacrifice for our sins."
As
I said earlier, the religious culture of John's day knew nothing about gods
being loving. The gods did not
love. They demanded their
followers to love them, and if their followers refused to love them, the
gods' favour would be withdrawn from their lives.
This is not so with the Christian God.
John said that it was God who first loved us.
We, as sinful human beings, did not love God first.
This would have been a very difficult concept for Gentile pagans to
comprehend in John's day. It
presented them with a whole new concept of God and the meaning of love.
John
said that we, as humans, did not first love God, but He first loved us, and
that was seen in God sending Jesus to us.
The verbs "loved" and "sent," as seen here and in
the last verse, are aorist verbs. An
aorist verb is a one-time, past-action verb.
The one-time action John would have had in mind is the incarnation of
Jesus in Mary's womb. This
reminds me of what the apostle Paul said, in Romans 5:8.
The text reads: "But
God proves his own love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ
died for us." Paul
and John were in agreement. We
did not love God, but, when we were steeped in our sinful existence, Jesus
demonstrated His love for us with His entrance into sinful humanity and with
His atoning sacrifice on the cross.
We
note the words "atoning sacrifice," in this verse.
We saw these words before, back in chapter 2, verse 2.
They are translated from the Greek word "hilasmos."
This word was a religious word in the first-century, Greco-Roman,
religious culture. Pagans felt
the need to do something that would turn the wrath of the gods away from
them. They would do a number of
things. Whatever they did was
understood to be a "hilasmos," an atoning sacrifice.
I prefer the term "propitiation" as the King James Bible
translates "hilasmos," in this verse, and as well in 1 John 2:2.
Propitiation is the process whereby God's wrath is turned away from
the believer. For
the Christian, we can do nothing to turn God's wrath away from us.
Jesus did all that was necessary to remove the wrath of God from us.
He did so when He was punished on the cross on our behalf.
His sacrificial death, that removed our sins from the heavenly
record, also removed God's righteous wrath from our lives in order for us to
be reconciled to God. John
called this act of divine selfless love an "atoning sacrifice," as
translated in the CSB or a "propitiation," as in the KJV.
We
should understand that wrath is a strong, even explosive, form of anger.
The two words are similar in meaning, but not exactly the same.
It
seems to be an ever-present human tendency for us to want to do something to
be accepted by God. Over the
centuries multitudes of rules, laws, and human traditions have been created
by the church in an attempt to win God's favour.
All of these things are worthless. In fact, they tell Jesus that what
He did on the cross for us needs some improvement, and our rules, laws, and
tradition are the improvement. Such
practices are an abomination to God. Telling
Jesus that we can improve on the love He displayed on the cross is one of
the worst sins we, as Christians, can commit.
To
have a proper understanding of what John was saying, here in verse 10, we
need a good understanding of the word "propitiation.
In today's Christianity, this word is not well understood.
Along with the word "propitiation," the word
"appease," also needs some thought.
The
word "appease," as it applies to human relationships, means
"to pacify someone by giving into his or her wishes or demands."
This results in a peaceful co-existence between the one being
appeased and the one doing the appeasing.
It only took a couple hundred of years of Christian history before
pagan influences crept into Christian theology and practice, and the concept
of appeasing God through some kind of personal sacrifice was one such pagan
influence. Christian monks, for
example, would emasculate themselves, in an attempt to rid themselves of
sexual desire, which they considered to be sin.
They believed this sacrifice would remove God's wrath from their
lives. As a man, it is difficult
for me to imagine castrating myself, especially with such crude carving
tools, in order to find favour with God.
Pagans
believed that their gods demanded, even needed, to be pampered and pleased.
They bent over backwards to appease their gods.
In King James vernacular, the removal of wrath in any relationship is
called "propitiation." Propitiation
is a long-forgotten, but most-important, theological word that needs to be
re-introduced into our Christian vocabulary with its Biblical, not pagan,
meaning. One
reason why the word "propitiation" has grown out of use is because
many people find it impossible to believe a loving God could exhibit wrath,
which is a strong, explosive, form of anger.
Jesus thought differently. John
3:36 says this: "Whoever
believes in the Son has eternal life, but whoever rejects the Son will not
see life, for God's wrath remains on
them."
God's
wrath is real, but, unlike human wrath, it does not emanate from a spirit of
retaliation, prejudice, or any other such sin.
It is based on a righteous justice that demands an accounting from
the one committing sin. Justice
that does not issue a verdict is not just.
For this reason, it was necessary for God to exercise justice by
demonstrating His wrath as punishment for sin.
The apostle Paul commented on this, in Romans 3:25.
The KJV says it this way.
"Whom
God hath set forth to be a propitiation
through faith in his blood, to declare his righteousness for the remission
of sins that are past, through the forbearance of God;" Okay,
the KJV rendering of this verse is not easy to grasp.
The NIV puts Romans 3:25 this way. "God
presented Christ as a sacrifice of atonement, through the shedding of his
blood — to be received by faith. He
did this to demonstrate his righteousness, because in his forbearance he had
left the sins committed beforehand unpunished." The
NIV's substitution of "sacrifice of atonement" for
"propitiation" is just as confusing because many of us do not
understand atonement either. Propitiation,
as stated, in Romans 3:25, is the process by which God's wrath has been
removed from the life of the believer. This
process occurred when Jesus, in an act of voluntary submission to God's
justice, suffered God's wrath for our sin.
The cross of Christ, then, was the demonstration of God's justice.
It provided the opportunity for us to be in peaceful co-existence
with God, occurring once we, like Jesus, voluntarily submit our lives to
God.
We
cannot improve upon the cross of Christ by means of any kind of personal
sacrifice, as attempted by the monks of old.
We can do nothing to remove God's wrath from our lives.
It was the love of God that has removed the wrath of God from our
lives. Verse
11 "Dear friends, if God
loved us in this way, we also must love one another."
There
is nothing difficult to understand in this verse.
If God loved us, as seen in Him becoming human and being sacrificed
for us, then we should love one another.
The love John has been writing about is sacrificial love.
It is not reciprocal love, as in, "I will love you if you love
me." The
word "loved," in the phrase "if God loved us," is an
aorist Greek verb. This means
the exact love John had in mind was demonstrated in one past moment of time,
which, I have been saying, was when God, in the form of our Lord Jesus
Christ, was conceived in Mary's womb. Verse
10 stated that God loved us when "He sent His Son," as in sending
Jesus to earth in human form, "to be an atoning sacrifice for our
sins." The culmination of
God's love that was seen in God sending Jesus to earth was demonstrated in
the cross of Christ.
Verse
12 "No one has ever seen
God. If we love one another, God remains in us and his love is
made complete in us." John
said, here, that "no one has ever seen God."
The Greek word translated as "seen" (theaomai) does mean to
see with one's eyes. However,
there is an element to this Greek word that suggests "comprehend."
And so "no one has ever seen or comprehended God" would be
an appropriate wording. God is
so far beyond human comprehension it is obvious that no one has ever
comprehended all who God is. John
was saying as well that no one has seen God with his eyes.
Moses was in God's presence, but he did not actually see God.
Theologians have debated for years whether we will ever be able to
see God as He is. I am not sure
that we will ever, in eternity, be able to see God.
One thing I know though: we will see Jesus because we will be like
Him. Maybe then, we will see
God. John
said that "if God's love remains (lives) in us, His love is complete in
us." The word
"complete," or "perfected" in the King James Bible, is
important here. We should not
understand God's love in us to ever be perfectly worked out in our lives.
We are human, and, our humanity always inhibits, to one degree or
another, God's love working in our lives in a good measure of perfection.
We should, however, understand His love to be complete in us.
John was saying that the intended goal of God's love that was
demonstrated in the life of Jesus was to have its fulfillment found in His
people. This was the case with
those to whom John was writing.
Review
This
section of John's letter concerns agape-style love.
One who has been born again of the Holy Spirit has been united with
God. Therefore the ultimate
love, God's love, can flow into the lives of the believers.
Then, that love can, and should, flow out to those people God places
in the path of the believers at any given time.
One
who is not born of God via the Holy Spirit is not united with God.
Logic, then, states that the person not in union with God cannot
receive God's love into his life in order to demonstrate it to others.
The
concept of God's wrath being removed from our lives in Jesus' act of
propitiation is seen here, in verse 10.
The doctrine of propitiation is important in Christian theology.
Present-day
Implications The
character quality of a true Christian that is seen in this passage is that
he has been born of God. He has
been born again of the Holy Spirit, as Jesus put it, in John 3:1 through 6.
When a person has the Holy Spirit within Him, he has the divine
pipeline to heaven from where God's love can flow to him and continue to
flow to others in his daily life. This
is the goal, not only of the Christian, but the intended goal of God's love
that was seen in Jesus while on earth. God,
through Jesus, loved us. That
love is made perfect, or better said, finds its completion in our
demonstration of selfless love. When
this is exhibited in the lives of believers, and in the life of the church,
our witness for Jesus will be effective.
Jesus Himself said this, as seen in John 13:35. "By
this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one
another."
Christians
over the years have not demonstrated this love as they should have.
It is for this reason the church has not been as effective as it
should have been. It may be hard
for us to believe, but Christians in centuries past, have actually killed
one another over doctrinal differences.
That does not demonstrate selfless love.
A
simple reading of 1 Corinthians 12 shows that true believers have been
immersed into the lives of those that Jesus has placed them alongside of in
the Body of Christ. We are so
placed alongside of others for both support and ministry.
Without selfless love flowing through these relationships in the Body
of Christ, the church will be disabled, as it presently is in many
localities. (1
John 4:13 - 21) The
Text 13 - This is how we know that we remain in
him and he in us: He has given us of his Spirit. 14 And
we have seen and we testify that the Father has sent his Son as the
world’s Savior. 15 Whoever
confesses that Jesus is the Son of God —
God remains in him and he in God. 16 And we have come to know and to believe the love that God has for
us. God is love, and the one who
remains in love remains in God, and God remains in him. 17 In this, love is made complete with us so that we may have
confidence in the day of judgment, because as he is, so also are we in
this world. 18 There is no fear in love; instead, perfect love drives out fear, because
fear involves punishment. So, the one who fears is not complete in
love. 19 We
love because he first loved us. 20 If
anyone says, 'I love God,' and yet hates his brother or sister, he is a
liar. For the person who does not love his brother or sister whom
he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen. 21 And
we have this command from him: The one who loves God must also love his
brother and sister. My
Commentary Verse
13 "This is how we know that we remain in
him and he in us: He has given us of his Spirit." What John said, here, is crucial to each one
who calls himself or herself a Christian.
Throughout this letter John has been re-affirming to his readers that
they can be sure that they are true believers.
This verse is not difficult to understand.
John said that the way that you know you are a true Christian is that
the Holy Spirit lives in you. He
does not come upon you from time to time.
He actually dwells in your very being.
You have been joined to Jesus in Spirit as Paul said in 1 Corinthians
4:17: "But
anyone joined to the Lord is one spirit with him." The Greek verb translated into English as
"we know" is a present indicative verb.
This means that, at the time of John writing this letter, his readers
knowing was a certainty. Being
certain of your salvation is fundamental to Christian growth.
Without this certainty, you will never mature in the Lord.
The
apostle Paul wrote about the Holy Spirit living in the believer, in
Ephesians 1:13. He wrote this:
"In
him you also were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit when you heard the
word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and when you believed." The
seal Paul wrote about is a seal of approval, or, a stamp of approval.
It is similar to a lawyer's seal that approves the authenticity of a
document. The Holy Spirit's
presence in one's life is the heavenly seal that proves one to be an
authentic child of God. If
you do not have the Holy Spirit living within you, then you do not belong to
God. Look at what Paul wrote, in
Romans 8:9. "You,
however, are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of
God lives in you. If anyone does
not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to him." You
cannot get it any clearer than how Paul put it.
If you do not have the Spirit of God within you, you do not belong to
God, and you are not a Christian. As
I have said earlier, the word "remain" is translated from the
Greek word "meno," which means "to live" or "to
dwell". John was thinking
of the Holy Spirit living in a person. I
tend to think the word "remain" suggests the possibility that the
Holy Spirit can leave the believer. For
this reason I like the word "live," or also the word
"dwell," because, in my thinking, they do not suggest leaving. Verse
14 "And we have seen and we testify that
the Father has sent his Son as the world’s Savior." The
phrase "we have seen" reminds me of how John opened his letter.
I believe the word "we," in this verse, means the
"collective we," which refers to John and his readers.
The
verb "we have seen" is a perfect indicative Greek verb.
The verb "we testify" is a present indicative verb.
When putting the two verbs together you get this: John and his
readers have seen and understood the message of Jesus in the past, and they,
in present time, testify to that message, which is, "God sent His Son
as the world's Saviour." The
verb "sent" is a perfect indicative Greek verb.
This means that the sending of Jesus to be the world's Saviour was a
past action and it implies that there are still present, completed results
and implications for us today. The fact of the matter was that John and his
readers were preaching a relevant message.
Jesus, God's Son, who was in past time sent into the world, is still
the Saviour of anyone in the world who would receive Him and His Spirit into
his life. Verse
15 "Whoever confesses that Jesus is
the Son of God — God remains in him and he in God." At
this point, in John's letter, he is really getting into the fundamental
truth of how one becomes a true, born-again believer in Jesus.
The verb "confesses" in this verse is what is called a
Greek aorist subjunctive. This
will mean nothing to most, especially since I have not yet commented on the
particular verb tense in this book. In
simple terms, the verb tense emphasizes the action without signifying the
time of the action. Therefore
the important thing is that the confession is made. The
Greek word "homolegeo," as I have mentioned before, is made up of
two Greek words. "Homo"
means "the same as" while "legeo" means "to
speak." Put these two words
together and you have "to speak the same thing," which in turn
means "to agree with another."
The
point to be made here, from the meaning of the word "homolegeo,"
is this. The one who agrees with
God that Jesus is His Son, meaning that Jesus is divine, has God remaining,
or living, in him. Such a
confessor also remains, or lives, in God.
As
I have also said before, I prefer the word "lives" instead of the
word "remains." John
used the Greek word "meno," in a number of places in his letter.
This Greek word means "to live or to dwell."
I suggest that the word "lives" does not exactly have the
same meaning as "remains."
Verse
16 "And we have come to know and to
believe the love that God has for us. God
is love, and the one who remains in love remains in God, and God remains in
him." The words "have come to know" and
"to believe" are both perfect indicative verbs.
In both instances, then, "have come to know" and "to
believe" are past actions with present-day, completed results.
John's reader's came to know the truth of Jesus in the past and they
still know and believe in the present. Once
again, as we have seen throughout this letter, John was re-assuring his
readers that they were genuine, born-of-God believers, despite what the
heretics might have said about them. John said that the one who loves remains, or
lives, in God, God will remain or live in him.
Of course, this is the sacrificial love as John defined love.
We must not understand this to mean that anyone who loves, as our
culture may define love, lives in God. Christians
must agree with God's definition of words.
Too often we see words in the Bible and use these words with our
twenty-first-century cultural definition of them.
That is a mistake. John
is writing about love that is expressed in some kind of sacrifice, something
are so-called tolerant culture knows little about. As I finish writing this commentary in the
summer of 2019, our North American culture is celebrating the fiftieth
anniversary of the rock concert known as Verse
17
"In this, love is made complete with us
so that we may have confidence in the Day of Judgment, because as he
is, so also are we in this world." We
have seen the word "complete" in John's letter before.
Some versions of the Bible use the word "perfect" but that
gives a wrong meaning to what John was saying.
We do not love perfectly. The
word "complete," as John has been using it means this:
the love of God that was demonstrated in the life of Jesus was
intended to find its completion, or, its intended goal, in the lives of
those who believe. This
is the second time John has written about being confident on the Day of
Judgment. John is not thinking
about the White Throne Judgment that we read about, in Revelation 20.
He is talking about the Judgment Seat of Christ, as Paul explained,
in 1 Corinthians 3:10 and following. It
is at that time when the Christian's good works in the Lord will be judged.
All the works will be judged and those done in faith, motivated by
the Spirit of God will be rewarded, Those
works performed with wrong motives, apart from faith, will be burned in the
fire and not be rewarded. John's
prayer for both himself and his readers is that no one will be ashamed of
himself when his or her works will be judged.
Understanding
that what we do for Jesus in this present life, or what we do not do for Him
in this life, will be judged by Jesus Himself, should be a serious thought
that challenges us to get off our couches and serve Jesus as He has called
us to do. The
advice that John gave his readers, and to us as well, is that if we do not
want to be ashamed on the Day of Judgment, then we are to be in the world as
Jesus presently is in heaven. The
more we become like Jesus, then the more confidence we will have in this
life and on the day when our works will be judged.
Verse
18 "There is no fear in love; instead,
perfect love drives out fear, because fear involves punishment. So,
the one who fears is not complete in love." This
statement would have been difficult for Gentile pagans to think through.
In their relationships with their gods there was much fear.
They feared their gods, because if they did not please their gods,
their gods would send their wrath upon their lives. John
said that fear suggests punishment, and punishment is what the pagans feared
from their gods if they did not please them.
John said that perfect, or complete love, drives out fear.
I have commented on the word "complete" before.
The love of God has been demonstrated in the life of Jesus.
When the Holy Spirit enters our lives, God wants His love to find its
completion, or, its intended goal of being expressed in and through our
lives. When this takes place, we
do not fear being punished by God. We
will also not be ashamed of ourselves on the day He judges our works.
We
should know that Christians should not fear being punished by God.
Jesus has taken that punishment on Himself on our behalf.
We will, however, experience God's discipline, but discipline as seen
in the Bible speaks of training or instructing us, not punishing us.
You
might ask this. "Does not
the Bible tell us to fear God?" The
Bible does tell us to fear God, but that fear is reverence.
We reverence Him for who He is, and, as Hebrews 12:29 states, God is
a consuming fire. If we were to
stand in the immediate presence of God, I believe our first reaction would
be to fear His awesomeness. I
think we would be afraid until we saw His arms of love outstretched toward
us. The God we would feel like
running away from in fear is the God we actually run to in love.
To
be precise, the fear John wrote about concerned being punished by God.
If we stood before God at this very moment, we might well be afraid
because of His awesomeness, but I am sure He would envelop us in love,
comfort, and peace. We should
never be afraid of God punishing us, or, even thinking in those terms.
Verse
19 "We love because he first loved
us." There
is nothing that is too difficult for us to understand about this verse.
For anyone of us who loves, with the agape, selfless love, we love
because God first loved us. I
have heard this question asked: "Can
a non-Christian perform acts of selfless love?"
I think one can. Does
that mean he, by his very nature or essence, is a lover, especially as
defined by God? I don't think
so. If a non-Christian expresses
any kind of sacrificial loving act, it is because God, his creator, the One
who formed his very spirit and soul (Zechariah 12:1) is love.
On
the other hand, if we are thinking of sacrificial love that flows directly
from God to the believer, then, I would suggest a non-Christian is not in a
position to receive such love from God to pass on to others.
There is a humanistic form of sacrificial love and there is a
God-given sacrificial love. The
difference between the two is from where they emanate.
For
Christians, we have been recreated as a new creation in Christ (2
Corinthians 5:17). Part of our
new nature in Christ is to be loving people.
We, therefore, by virtue of who we have become in Christ, are lovers,
as defined by God. We simply
just need to express this love more than we presently do.
We may struggle with living out selfless love, but, if the Holy
Spirit of God lives in us, we do have the ability to express His love.
Verse
20 "If anyone says, 'I love God, 'and yet
hates his brother or sister, he is a liar. For the person who
does not love his brother or sister whom he has seen cannot love God
whom he has not seen." John
made a strong statement, here, that needs understanding.
He said that if one says he loves God but he hates his brother, that
one is a liar. Do Christians
ever hate a brother or sister in the Lord?
I dare say that history tells us that Christians do, at least at
times, hate a brother or sister in Christ.
If they say they love God and hate their brother or sister, they are
at least lying, but John does not say they are just lying.
He said they are liars. Can
a Christian be a liar, that is, one who by his nature is a liar?
The phrase, "the person who does not love" may help explain
this. Those words are a present
participle. This means, by
virtue of who this person is, he does not love.
He or she does not just not love from time to time, but does not love
because that is who he is at the core of who he or she is.
Christians can lie. Christians
can hate, but, can Christians be a hater at the core of who they have become
in Christ? Well, I question
that. John might have had the
heretics in mind when he penned these words.
Maybe they were the haters.
Verse
21 "And
we have this command from him: The one who loves God must also love his
brother and sister." This
statement is simple for us to understand.
A lover of God should be a lover of his or her brothers and sisters
in Christ. If the church is ever
to function as it must, as Jesus' representative to the world, then we must
follow the command to love, with the agape, sacrificial love John was
talking about in this passage. Review
There
can be much said in a review to this section.
It is jam-packed full of Biblical truth.
John began by saying that the true Christian is one who has the Holy
Spirit living in him. One who
does not have the Holy Spirit residing in him, does not belong to God, as
Paul said, in Romans 8:9. That
person is not a Christian. The
one who has the Holy Spirit living in him will be a confessor, by virtue of
being a new creation in Christ. That
is to say, he will continually agree with God on all things, because the
word "confess," as John has been using it, means "to
agree." John
also pointed out that a true believer will do good works.
Doing good is just what he does because that is who he is.
Part of these good works is loving one's brothers and sisters in
Christ, and at times, this love may demand selfless acts of love. The
one who lives in the love of God will not fear Jesus now or when he stands
before Him some day to have his works judged.
One who lives in the love of God, and is actively involved in serving
Him out of pure motives, will not be ashamed of himself on the day Jesus
judges his service, done in His name. Present-Day
Implications The
characteristic of a true Christian in this passage is having the Holy Spirit
in his life. This is one of the
most fundamental aspects of being a Christian.
Without God's Spirit living in you, you are not a Christian.
Belief alone, saves no one. You
must, therefore, seriously ask yourself if the Holy Spirit has ever come
into your life. When He does
enter your life, He, and only He, is God's legal seal that proves you to be
a valid, born-again, believer. This
is the meaning of what Paul said, in Ephesians 1:13.
He said this: "In
him you also were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit when you heard the
word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and when you believed." As
I have said earlier in this commentary, the word "seal" in the
above verse means an authenticating seal of approval, like a lawyer would
use when authenticating a document to be legitimate.
It
is my opinion that much of the western-world, Evangelical church has become
weak with respect to holding to the theology of a true Christian being one
who has the Holy Spirit living within him.
Evangelicals tend to equate believing in Jesus with receiving the
Holy Spirit into their lives. These
two actions are not the same. I
explain this in my book entitled "Revisiting Pentecost."
Believing, or trusting Jesus, is an action taken by us with the help
of the Holy Spirit. Receiving
the Spirit of God in our lives can occur only by an action taken by God as
He wills.
Beyond
the Holy Spirit's entrance into your life, John gives a few other character
traits of a real Christian. A
real believer is one who confesses, which means one who agrees with God.
A real believer is also one who will purify himself, do good works,
and love his brothers and sisters in Christ.
Will we be perfect in these character traits?
I think we would all agree that the answer to that question is,
"no." However,
inherent in the true believer is the desire to purify himself, do good
works, and love the Christian brotherhood.
These traits will be in the believer because, by virtue of becoming a
new creation in Christ, he has become those character traits. It
is important for us to understand that the love of God that was seen and
demonstrated in Jesus' earthly life was intended to find its completion in
you and me as Christians. It is
what being a Christian is all about. It
is fundamental in the process of representing Jesus to the culture in which
we live. Our acts of love and
service for Jesus will be judged by Jesus when we meet him face to face.
Having an understanding of this future reality should make us think
seriously about doing the will of God right now.
The Christian life is not about just being a Christian; it is doing
the works of a Christian. It is
expressing in real time who we have become, which is a brand new creation in
Christ.
(1
John 5:1 - 12) The
Text 1 - Everyone who
believes that Jesus is the Christ has been born of God, and everyone
who loves the Father also loves the one born of him. 2 This is how we know that we love God’s children: when we love God
and obey his commands. 3 For
this is what love for God is: to keep his commands. And
his commands are not a burden, 4 because everyone who has been born of God conquers the world. This
is the victory that has conquered the world: our faith.
5 Who
is the one who conquers the world but the one who believes that Jesus
is the Son of God? 6 Jesus
Christ — he is the one who came by water and blood, not by water only, but
by water and by blood. And the Spirit is the one who testifies, because
the Spirit is the truth. 7 For there are three that testify: 8 the Spirit, the water, and the blood — and these three are
in agreement. 9 If
we accept human testimony, God’s testimony is greater, because it is
God’s testimony that he has given about his Son. 10 The one who believes in the Son of God has this testimony within
himself. The one who does not
believe God has made him a liar, because he has not believed in the
testimony God has given about his Son. 11 And
this is the testimony: God has given us eternal life, and this life is in
his Son. 12 The one who has the Son has life. The one who does not have
the Son of God does not have life. My
Commentary Verse
1 "Everyone who believes that Jesus is the
Christ has been born of God, and everyone who loves the Father also
loves the one born of him." It is vitally important to understand what
the word "believes" means in this verse, and throughout the New
Testament. The Greek noun
"pistis" is translated in the English New Testament as
"faith," "trust," "belief," and other such
related words. The Greek verb
"pisteuo" is translated in our English New Testament as "to
believe," "to trust," and other such related verbs.
Whether these words are nouns or verbs, the essential meaning of the
Greek words is "trust," or "to trust."
They do not mean merely giving mental assent or acknowledging.
One can acknowledge that Jesus is divine but such an acknowledgement
is not what the Biblical view of faith or believe means.
Faith and believe mean "to trust," as in, "I trust my
life with Jesus." Trusting
your entire life with Jesus is not just believing in His existence as the
divine Son of God. Mentally
believing in the divinity of Jesus is a prerequisite to Biblical faith, and
is a first step in handing your life over to Him in a trusting relationship,
but it is not the indicator of having divine life. One
cannot be born of God by simply acknowledging that Jesus is the Christ.
The verb tense of the word
"believes" is important. It
is a present Greek participle. Being
a participle puts the emphasis on one who by his very nature, by virtue of
the new creation in Christ that he has become, is trusting that Jesus is the
Christ. He is not someone who
occasionally believes or trusts, or attempts to trust.
He is not one who is simply believing in his head, or acknowledging
with his intellect that Jesus is the Christ.
The next verbal phrase says, "has been
born of God." The verb
"has been born" is a Greek present perfect verb.
That means that the one John was writing about was born of God in the
past, and because of that fact, is still born of God and still trusts in God
in the present, when John wrote this letter. The only way that one can have
by nature, a true trusting relationship with Jesus, is to have been born
again of God. That trusting
nature is an indication of having received the Holy Spirit. It is the one who trusts Jesus with his life
who will be born of God. Such
trust needs the assistance of the Holy Spirit in one's life.
Significantly, anyone can take steps, with the help of the Holy
Spirit, of putting trust in Jesus without yet having received the Holy
Spirit into his life to be born again of God. Taking steps of trust does not
mean that someone is a Christian, in biblical terms, yet.
Being born of God, or, being born again, as Jesus told Nicodemus, in
John 3, is when the Holy Spirit comes into one's life.
John ends this verse by telling his readers
that anyone who loves (agape - sacrificial loves) the Father loves those who
are born of God, who are his brothers and sisters in Christ.
The "everyone who loves," is a present participle, and
speaks about the ones who, by virtue of who they have become, are lovers.
John said that such lovers will love the brotherhood of believers.
This is fundamental for the Body of Christ, the church, to be
functioning as it is meant to function.
When one is born of God, you might say that
he is born into the family of God. You
cannot separate the two. You
cannot be born into God without being born into His family.
You cannot be a member of His family without being born of God.
This is one Biblical truth that is sadly lacking in today's
western-world church. Where it
is lacking and not seen to be in practise, I believe that the family of God
might not exist.
Verse
2 "This is how we know that we love
God’s children: when we love God and obey his commands." All of the verbs in this verse are the
present tense. If a person, in
present time, claims to love God's children, his or her brothers and sisters
in Christ, we know that claim to be true when he or she loves God and obeys
His commands. Of course, Jesus
linked the love of God with the love of brothers and sisters, when He spoke
of the two great commandments. Luke
10:27 says this: "He
answered, 'Love the Lord your God with all your
heart, with all your soul, with all your strength, and with all your mind;
and your neighbor as yourself.'" Love of God and love of others go hand in
hand. Both Jesus and John said
that the two cannot be separated. If
you love God, you will love the brotherhood of believers.
If you do not love the brotherhood of believers, you don't love God.
It is not difficult to understand. Verse
3 "For this is what love for God is: to
keep his commands. And his
commands are not a burden," There is nothing difficult about this verse.
It reminds me of two things Jesus told His disciples.
The first one is found in John 14:15.
It reads: "If
you love me,
you will keep my commands." According to Jesus, one who loves Him will do
as He says. It is for this
reason that I have often said that saying you love Jesus is a serious
statement, because once you say that, people will be watching you to see if
you obey Him. Obedience is one
proof that you love Jesus. The second thing John's statement reminds me
of is what Jesus said, in Matthew 11:30.
He said this: "For
my yoke is easy and my burden is light." Obeying Jesus is a yoke we have to bear.
Jesus did not say that we as Christians do not have a yoke, or
responsibilities to carry out and perform.
Jesus was not saying that we can sit back and take it easy.
The word "yoke" suggests work.
An ox wears a yoke so he can effectively work.
Christians have a job to do, but Jesus said that this job was not a
burden. I suggest, then, that if
you feel it is a great burden to do what Jesus has asked you to do, then you
have a problem. Either you have
misheard Jesus, or you are not in the position you should be in as a
Christian to do God's will. Too many times I have noted that the work of
the Lord seems to be a burden to some, but Jesus said it wasn't.
One who is in the right place, in right relationship with Jesus, will
not find it a burden to obey and serve Him.
For example, if Jesus asks you to teach His word, then you are
probably a teacher by nature. Jesus
would not ask you to do something that you are not qualified to do.
If He asks you to do anything in obedience to Him, He will provide
what is necessary for the work to be done.
You can count on that. In
that sense of the word, obedience to Jesus, in that which He wants you to
do, will not be burdensome. However,
obedience may come with a struggle. Our
flesh will at times struggle with doing what Jesus wants it to do, but once
the struggle is over obedience becomes a joy. Jesus Himself struggled with obedience in the
garden just prior to His death on the cross, but, once He overcame the
struggle, He freely, and gladly, went to the cross in obedience to His
Father. Once the fight was over,
He carried out the task ahead of Him in confidence.
All
of the above being said, this does not mean that serving Jesus will not have
its tough times. The apostle
Paul lived a life with many trials, but still, in the midst of the tough
times, he carried his yoke with a thankful heart.
Verse
4 "because everyone who has been born of
God conquers the world. This is
the victory that has conquered the world: our faith." John said here that the one "who has
been born of God conquers the world."
The word "world" refers to one's surrounding culture.
Note the verbal phrase "has been
born." The verb tense is
one that John has not used much in his letter.
It is a perfect passive participle.
Here is what that means. Perfect
is a past action with present-day results.
The past action referred to here would be the action of being born of
God, being born again of the Spirit, as Jesus put it, in John 3:3 to 5.
A participle is a combination of both a noun and a verb.
It not only speaks of an action but it speaks of that action being
performed by one, who by his very nature, is a doer of that action.
In this sense, the one who has been born again of the Spirit in past
time, is presently a born-again one. As
Paul put it, in 2 Corinthians 5:17, he is a new creation in Christ.
He doesn't just do things Christians are to do, he does those things
because by his very nature he is a doer of those things.
A passive verb is an action that someone does
to you. You are not doing the
action. The action being done to
John's readers here is that in past time, the Holy Spirit came into John's
readers' lives. At that point,
they were born again of the Spirit. It
was not something John's readers did. It
was all from God. John was saying that everyone who is a
present-day born-again one will conquer the sinful culture in which he
lives, preventing it from being influential in his life.
If he does not conquer, then you can question if he has ever been
born again of the Spirit. Again,
this does not mean there will not be any struggle in the process of
conquering. There certainly will be a struggle, but eventually, the struggle
will end, and conquering will take place. The verb "that has conquered" in
this verse is another Greek verb tense that John also has not used much in
his letter. It is an aorist
active participle. An aorist
verb refers to a one time action that has taken place in the past.
Active means that the subject involved is doing the action.
The action is not being done to it.
A participle puts the emphasis on the one doing the action by virtue
of his nature, not just the action. In
short, John was thinking about the victory that conquered the world in past
time because, by its very nature, it was a conqueror.
Faith is not something that only occasionally conquers.
His readers' faith had already conquered the world because that was
the nature of their true faith. This
was meant to be an encouragement to John's readers who were under pressure
from the heretics to conform to their heresies.
John might well have been saying that his readers had conquered the
world of the heretics because of their true faith. Verse
5 "Who is the one who conquers the world but
the one who believes that Jesus is the Son of God?" Both "the one who conquers" and
"the one who believes" are present participles.
This emphasizes the one who, by his new nature in Christ, is both a
conqueror and one who trusts his life with Jesus in the process of
conquering the world. John was
not just thinking about the action of conquering and believing, or trusting.
He was thinking of one being a conqueror and a believer, right then
in present-time as he penned this letter.
Verse
6 "Jesus Christ — he is the one who came
by water and blood, not by water only, but by water and by blood.
And the Spirit is the one who testifies, because the Spirit is the
truth." This has been one very controversial and
well-debated verse over the last nineteen hundred years.
There have been various interpretations to just what the words
"water and blood" mean. Some
suggest these words are an allusion to the Old Testament Law of Moses
references to water that washed the priests and blood that covered sin.
Others suggest it speaks of the water and blood that flowed from
Jesus' body on the cross. See
John 19:34. Still others suggest
it has something to do with communion, the Lord's Supper.
These are just a few ways in which people have attempted to
understand John's statement. Here is how I understand it, at least at the
present moment. I think that
water could refer to Jesus' baptism, in water, that initiated His earthly
ministry. I think the blood
might well refer to His blood that was shed on the cross that was both the
goal of His earthly ministry and, in one sense of the word, the conclusion
of His earthly ministry. If what I have said is the proper
interpretation, it would fit into the context of why John was writing this
letter. The heretics, that were
attempting to lead the Christians astray with their false teaching about
Jesus, believed that Jesus was not divine.
They believed that what they called "the Christ spirit"
came on Jesus at His water baptism and then left Him just prior to His death
on the cross. John could have
been refuting this teaching by saying that Jesus death, the shedding of His
blood, was part of the divine calling on His life.
I do not normally make a major point over a
word like "by," but this time I will because others have.
The word "by" suggests the means by which Jesus was
anointed as Christ. He passed
by, or through, both baptism and death, proving He was in fact the Christ.
The verb in this verse; "[Jesus] is the
one" is an aorist participle. An
aorist verb is a past action. A
participle emphasizes one doing the action because of his nature to do the
action. John said that
"Jesus Christ is the one who came."
Jesus came, at one specific time in past history, and, when He came,
He was the Christ, or, He was divine. He
did not become divine when He was baptized in water.
This fact should be clear. Jesus
always was, and still is, divine.
John said that "the Spirit is the one
who testifies." The verb,
“who testifies” is a present participle.
The Holy Spirit at the time John wrote was currently testifying of
Jesus' divinity because by His very nature of being truth He was a
testifier. I believe the Spirit,
because of His nature, testified also when Jesus was baptized in water when,
like a dove, He descended upon Him. See
John 1:32. There are many beliefs about what John meant
by the water and the blood, in this verse.
Whatever one might believe, only those to whom he wrote his letters
most likely really knew what he meant. It
probably had something to do with the finer details of the false teaching of
the heretics.
Verse
7 "For there are three that testify:" Anyone who reads verse 7 in the King James
Bible will notice a major difference from what he or she reads in the CSB or
any other newer version of the Bible. The
KJV reads this way: "For
there are three that bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the
Holy Ghost: and these three are one." The fact of the matter, supported by most all
scholars, is that verse 7 was not written by John.
It was first introduced into John's letter in a fourth-century Latin
text. That text was not the
Vulgate. The Vulgate is the
fourth century Latin version of the Bible that was the main text of the
Bible for centuries and is the text of Catholicism.
The first appearance of verse 7 in a Greek text was in the eleventh
and twelfth century. In those
texts it was a side note that was added in the margin.
It was not a part of the original text.
It is interesting to note that, over the
couple of hundreds of years of debate over the doctrine of the Trinity,
roughly from 400 to 600 BC, the debate did not include this verse.
It did not include this verse because there was no verse to include
in the debate. There are no
quotes from this verse because it did not exist.
One would think that if this verse could be found in any Greek
manuscript prior to 300 BC it would have been quoted to defend the doctrine
of the Triune nature of God, but it was never quoted. This verse found its way into the King James
Bible because Erasmus (born 1469 - died 1536) was pressured by the
Trinitarian religious establishment to insert it into the third edition of
His Greek New Testament, from which the King James Bible was translated.
Verse
8 "the
Spirit, the water, and the blood — and these three are in agreement." Your understanding of the words
"water" and "blood," as discussed above, will determine
your understanding of this verse. The
Holy Spirit is obviously in agreement, and I think the word
"agreement" is in reference to Jesus being the Christ.
John also said that the water and the blood are in agreement.
As I said earlier, as the water and blood refer to the testimony of
Jesus' divinity in His being the Christ, then the water and blood are
certainly in agreement.
Verse
9 "If we accept human testimony, God’s
testimony is greater, because it is God’s testimony that he has given
about his Son." In
this verse John wrote about God's testimony, concerning Jesus being the
Christ, as being more important than man's testimony.
God's testimony was spoken when the voice from heaven confirmed Jesus
to be His Son, at Jesus' baptism in water.
Matthew 3:17 says: "And
a voice from heaven said: “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am
well-pleased." Whether
the apostle John actually saw Jesus baptized in water, saw the descent of
the Spirit, and heard the heavenly voice, is debatable.
Whatever the case, he was close enough to the event that he certainly
knew about it and understood its significance.
I
remind you at this point that John the apostle is not John the Baptist who
baptized Jesus in water. These
two John's were two distinct and different men.
John
spoke about accepting "human testimony."
He might have been thinking in general terms here.
It was common practice, as it is today, in both the Greco-Roman
culture, and in Jewish culture, that the truth of anything was to be
established by the testimony of witnesses.
If human testimony to the truth of anything was important, then God's
testimony about Jesus cannot be denied.
Jesus was in fact the Christ, and God in human form.
Verse
10 "The one who believes in the Son of God
has this testimony within himself. The
one who does not believe God has made him a liar, because he has not
believed in the testimony God has given about his Son." The
verbs "the one who believes," and, "the one who does not
believe," are present participles.
We have two types of individuals here.
One is the believer and one is the non-believer.
The emphasis is on who these two individuals are.
The believer naturally believes while the non-believer naturally does
not believe. The
one who believes does not simply acknowledge that Jesus is the Son of God.
He, by virtue of becoming a new creation in Christ, believes, or,
trusts, his entire life with Jesus as the Son of God.
The one who, by virtue of who he is, which is a non-believer, cannot
trust his life with Jesus. It is
an impossibility for him to do so. John
said this non-believer calls God a liar because he has rejected the heavenly
testimony that confirmed Jesus to be the Christ, and the divine Son of God.
Verse
11 "And this is the testimony: God has
given us eternal life, and this life is in his Son." The
verb "has given" in the phrase "God has given" is a
Greek aorist verb. This means
that in one specific past moment, God provided eternal life for each and
every human being. The specific
moment of time was when He drew His last breath on the cross.
We
should understand the term "eternal life," as John used it
throughout his writings, as living forever in the immediate presence of God.
I believe the Bible teaches that once a person is born into this
world, he has an eternal, spiritual, element to him.
Everyone will live beyond this life in some kind of eternal
existence, either in the presence of God, or not in His presence in a place
called the Verse
12 "The one who has the Son has life.
The one who does not have the Son of God does not have life." Both
"the
one who has"
and "the
one who does not have"
are present Greek participles. The
one who has Jesus, the Son, in his life by virtue of becoming a new creation
in Christ, has life because Jesus is the author of life.
I might suggest that it is also more productive and fulfilled life
now, as well as life in the presence of God throughout eternity.
The one, by virtue of who he is, who does not have the Son, misses
out on real life now and throughout eternity.
Review
John
has said a lot, in these twelve verses.
The first thing I would like to say is this:
do not be alarmed that the King James Bible has inserted a verse,
into the text, that should not be there.
Do not let this destroy your faith in the Bible.
The doctrine of the Inspiration of Scripture that has been well
accepted in Christian theology for centuries means this: the original
writings, which we do not have, were inspired by the Spirit of God, but
copies and translations of those original manuscripts are not inspired.
When
the King James New Testament was written and published in 1611, there were
only six Greek manuscripts that could be used in the process of translation.
Due to unearthing more manuscripts and partial manuscripts, we have
close to six thousand texts from which we can now translate the New
Testament. That, along with a
much better understanding of Koine Greek, the language in which the New
Testament was written, makes our translations more accurate.
It
is a difficult task to translate documents, from an ancient past, that were
written over several hundred years, and written in languages that existed in
cultures foreign to us. I am
sure God understands our dilemma, and being a loving and grace-filled God,
as John said He is, He will have mercy on us as we attempt to understand His
word the best we can. One
of John's main points, in this section, is that the one who is really born
again of the Holy Spirit will obey Jesus' commands, will overcome the world,
and will love the brotherhood of believers.
He differentiates being a born-again-of-the-Spirit believer from
being someone who simply, mentally, acknowledges the divinity of Jesus.
It is the presence of the Holy Spirit in one's life that makes him a
true child of God, a true believer.
Present-Day
Implications The
characteristics of a true Christian that John stated in this section are
first and foremost, that he has been born again of the Spirit of God.
Therefore, he will love his brothers and sisters in Christ, overcome
the world, and obey Jesus' commands. He
will not live a lifestyle of sin, even though he, as one with a sinful
nature, will commit sin. You
might want to consider your faith in Jesus in light of 1 John 5:7 not being
written by John. Does this put
stress on your trust in Jesus? This
is something that all Christians should come to grips with because this
verse is not the only verse in the Bible that is questionable.
Any Christian who wants to educate himself in Biblical thought has to
deal, sooner or later, with some textual difficulties.
You cannot avoid it. You
might as well come to grips with it now, and in so doing, confirm your trust
in Jesus to be valid trust.
One
Biblical truth we see in this section, and in previous sections, is the
importance of the Holy Spirit in your life.
This question must be asked. Have
I received the Holy Spirit into my being, or, am I just acknowledging what I
read in the Bible to be true? Acknowledgment
of Biblical truth saves no one. Mentally
agreeing with the Bible's claim that Jesus is divine, does not mean you have
the Holy Spirit in your being. Remember,
Romans 8:9 states that if you do not have the Spirit in your life, you do
not belong to God. Getting this
all-important Biblical truth correct in your life is basic to who you are,
or who you claim to be. Our
twenty-first-century Evangelical church, at least in my opinion, has
devalued Biblical faith to mere mental acceptance, and has, along the way,
set aside the importance of the Holy Spirit living within a person.
It is up to you to make sure where you stand on these vital issues.
If you are struggling with loving the Christian brotherhood,
struggling to overcome the world, and struggling to obey Jesus, it might
well be that you do not have the Holy Spirit in your life.
If this is the case you are not a Christian.
Before you do anything else, you must have this settled in your life.
(1
John 5:13 - 21) The
Text 13 - I have written these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God so that you may know that you have eternal life. 14 This is the confidence we have before him: If we ask anything according to his will, he hears us. 15 And if we know that he hears whatever we ask, we know that we have what we have asked of him. 16 If anyone sees a fellow believer committing a sin that doesn’t lead to death, he should ask, and God will give life to him — to those who commit sin that doesn’t lead to death. There is sin that leads to death. I am not saying he should pray about that. 17 All unrighteousness is sin, and there is sin that doesn’t lead to death. 18 We know that everyone who has been born of God does not sin, but the one who is born of God keeps him, and the evil one does not touch him. 19 We know that we are of God, and the whole world is under the sway of the evil one. 20 And we know that the Son of God has come and has given us understanding so that we may know the true one. We are in the true one — that is, in his Son Jesus Christ. He is the true God and eternal life. 21 Little children, guard yourselves from idols. My
Commentary Verse
13 "I have written these things to you who
believe in the name of the Son of God so that you may know that you
have eternal life." To
begin, what John said here confirms that he was writing to Christians.
You will recall that, in 1 John 2:18 and 19, the false believers left
the community of believers. They
went out on their own, leaving the true Christians to themselves.
The fact that John was writing to Christians helps us understand
certain parts of John's letter, especially 1 John 1:5 through 2:2.
You can refer back to my comments on that section. What
John said here, in verse 12, also confirms my point that this letter was
meant to re-affirm to John's Christian readers that they were indeed true
believers, possessing eternal life. They
needed this re-affirmation because of the unsettling havoc that would have
been caused by the heretics and their false teaching that afflicted the
church. Note
that these believers would not have eternal life just at some future date.
John said, right then in their present time, they possessed eternal
life. Why?
It was because they had the eternal Spirit of God living within them.
Look at how Jesus worded this, in John 5:24. "Truly
I tell you, anyone who hears my word and believes him who sent me has
eternal life and will not come under judgment but has passed from death to
life."
Jesus
said that the true believer has already passed from death unto life, eternal
life that exists now and in the eternal age.
Eternal life, then, for the believer, is not just a future
expectation. Verse
14 "This is the confidence we have before
him: If we ask anything according to his will, he hears us." What
John said here is vitally important, especially for those who believe that
if you have faith in Jesus then all of your prayers should be answered.
For example, those of the Hyper Faith Movement believe that if you
have faith to be healed of an illness you will be healed.
If you are not healed, then you do not have genuine faith.
I am certainly not of that persuasion.
This
verse specifically states that what you ask for must be in accordance with
God's will. There are also other
verses like this one that those of the Hyper Faith Movement miss.
If you are called to serve Jesus in some capacity, which all of us
are, then He will give you whatever you ask for that will help you carry out
His will. John's statement does
not mean we can ask, and expect to receive, all that our hearts desire. Throughout
John's gospel account he quotes Jesus a number of times saying that if you
ask Him or the Father anything "in my name," it will be done.
John 15:16 says this: "You
did not choose me, but I chose you. I appointed you to go and produce fruit
and that your fruit should remain, so that whatever you ask
the Father in my name, he will give you." In
this verse, we are told that the asking is to be made in the name of Jesus.
"In
the name of Jesus"
means that when you go out to represent Him and His name to the world then
whatever you need in His service will be given you upon your request.
The asking is in conjunction with representing the good name of Jesus
to the world. Among other
verses, you can also read John 15:7; 16:23, 24, and 26. There
are other verses that speak about asking and receiving that have no
qualifying terms. They do not
tell you to ask in Jesus' name, or to ask according to God's will.
Luke 16:9 is one such verse. It
reads: "So
I say to you, ask, and it will be given to
you. Seek, and you will find. Knock,
and the door will be opened to you." When
reading the above verse and others like it, you must consider all of the
"ask" verses found throughout the New Testament when attempting to
understand what we as Christians should be asking for.
Asking for material possessions, for example, to feed our hedonistic
lifestyle, is not what we should be asking for.
The
verb "ask" in the phrase, "if we ask anything." is what
is called a present Greek subjunctive verb.
This verb tense suggests a continuous, present time, action of
asking. It does not mean asking
just one time. This tells me
that at times we must persevere in our asking.
It may take time before the Lord decides to grant our request.
Something
that is lost among many western-world Christians these days is the idea that
we must continue to pray. Paul
said that we must pray without ceasing, or without stopping, in 1
Thessalonians 5:17. Beyond that,
there is what Christians call "interceding in prayer."
Such intercession requires much time and serious prayer as we focus
on the details of our prayer.
John
said that if we continue to ask, and if we ask in accordance with God's
will, we can be confident that sooner or later we will get what we ask for,
unless there is something in our lives that is hindering God from answering
our prayer, or unless for some reason the Lord prefers not to answer our
prayer in the way we might expect Him to.
Verse
15 "And if we know that he hears whatever
we ask, we know that we have what we have asked of him." John
made it clear that if we know, in present time, that God hears our prayers
that we are continually asking, we know that we have, in present time what
we ask for. I use the words
"continually asking" because once again the Greek verb
"ask," as in the last verse, is a present subjunctive verb.
This verb suggests a continual asking, not just a one-time asking.
If,
therefore, we continually ask according to God's will, knowing that He hears
us, we can be confident that we have, present tense verb, what we have asked
for. Here is some of the
thinking of the Hyper Faith people. They
say that if you really have faith, then you, in present time, already have
what you have asked for. For
this reason, then, you should act as if you already have the answer. This
would mean that if you need healing from cancer, you should act like you are
already healed of the cancer, even though it would appear the cancer is
still in your body. It would
mean that if you were blind, you should act as if you are sighted.
How you would go about doing that is beyond my capability of
thinking. This way of thinking
makes no common sense, let alone any Biblical sense.
I
believe what John is saying is this: asking in God's will provides the
confidence that you can trust God for the answer, because, according to the
Greek verb tense, the asking is a continuous asking,
that suggests that you have not yet received in physical reality what
you initially asked for. You
keep asking, being confident the answer will come.
Your confidence is, thus, in knowing you are asking in God's will.
Your confidence is not merely based on the faith you think you have.
Verse
16 "If anyone sees a fellow believer
committing a sin that doesn’t lead to death, he should ask, and God will
give life to him — to those who commit sin that doesn’t lead to death.
There is sin that leads to death. I am not saying he should pray about
that." Speaking
about asking God for something, John gives an example of what can be asked
for in this verse, but along the way, we have a problem that is difficult to
solve. What John said here has
caused much discussion, debate, and questioning over the centuries.
I am not sure that I can end the confusion. First
of all, the verb "committing" in the phrase "committing a
sin" is a present Greek participle, and, as I have been saying
throughout this commentary, a present participle emphasizes one committing
an action based on who he is. A
sinner sins because he is a sinner. Because
the verb in this verse is a present participle it, thus, suggests that the
person is sinning because that is who he is.
His very nature is one who sins.
He, in fact, is living a lifestyle of sin.
That makes sense, but what does not make sense, is that John called
this person "a brother." I
have been saying in this commentary that a true Christian does not live a
lifestyle of sin, so how can I say that this brother in the Lord is living a
lifestyle of sin? It
might well be that this truly Christian brother is beginning to live a
lifestyle of sin that has been foreign to who he has been.
He might not be living a lifestyle of all sorts of sins, but maybe
just one specific sin. It is my
observation that there have been some true believers who have fallen, for
one reason or another, into a habit of a specific sin, which needs to be
repented of and walked away from. John
might well be saying, "Pray for that brother."
John
said that God would give that brother life.
God would bring the brother out of the sin and bring him back into
the light of God which produces life in the believer.
Sin disrupts the good fellowship we have with God, and thus, takes
away from the life of God that is resident in the believer.
When the sin is removed, life returns.
The
next problematic phrase in this verse concerns the sin that does not lead to
death and the sin that does lead to death.
This too has confused many over the centuries, and again, I do not
know if I can provide a satisfactory answer to what these sins are.
I
do believe that all sins are forgivable, except for one.
That one is unrepented unbelief or the unrepented rejection of Jesus
and what He has provided us on the cross.
Over the years I have called this sin the sin against the Holy
Spirit. I believe Jesus spoke of
this sin, in Matthew 12:31. He
said this: "Therefore,
I tell you, people will be forgiven every sin and blasphemy, but the
blasphemy against the Spirit will not be forgiven." This
verse too has been well debated. The
question is always asked. What
is the sin of blasphemy against the Holy Spirit?
I could be wrong, but I have always believed that blasphemy against
the Holy Spirit is forever saying no to the Holy Spirit when He calls you to
repentance and faith that would lead to His entrance into your life.
It makes sense that this sin cannot be forgiven.
If it could be forgiven, or, if the forgiveness for that sin had been
paid for on the cross, then all are saved. It would nullify the necessity of
faith for righteousness. God
could have simply declared that all are forgiven whether all believe or not.
That is not the case. Therefore
the sin of blaspheming against the Holy Spirit leads to death, which I
understand here to mean eternal death. This
understanding seems to fit into what John is saying here.
All
other sins a person can commit are forgivable and do not have to lead to
death. As Christians we do sin.
1 John 2:1 made that clear. If
one continues to commit one sin, but not to live a lifestyle of sin, then
that person needs our prayers because continuing in that one sin disrupts
the fellowship that one has with His Lord.
Why
did John say that we should not pray for the one committing a sin that leads
to death? At the moment, I have
no credible answer. Although
many have attempted to give their answers, I have yet to find one that
satisfies me.
Verse
17 "All unrighteousness is sin, and there
is sin that doesn’t lead to death."
John
said that "all unrighteousness is sin."
This is yet another, secondary definition of sin.
The primary definition of sin is "to miss the mark of God's
righteousness in one's life" because that is the New Testament's usage
of the Greek word "hamartia," that is translated into English as
"sin." Once
again John said that there is a sin that does not lead to death.
Allow me to suggest that the death spoken of here might be eternal
death, being sent to the What
John said in this verse is often quoted as a proof text for those who
believe that a Christian can lose his salvation, but whether John is
implying that, is highly debatable. Verse
18 "We know that everyone who has been
born of God does not sin, but the one who is born of God keeps him, and
the evil one does not touch him." Verse
18 adds to our confusion. "Everyone
who is born of God does not sin." The
verb "born" is a present Greek participle.
This means that John is talking about the one who, by virtue of who
is, is now in Christ. He says
that this one does not sin. Well,
just a couple verses back John said that if a brother does sin, pray for
him. We have an apparent
discrepancy. But the verb tense
for "sin" is present indicative active, as we have seen earlier,
in 1 John 3:5 and 6. The words
"does not sin" thus means "does not continuously sin."
Because of this, most teachers say that the brother spoken of here
does not live a lifestyle of sin, but he does, like all of us, sin on
occasion. The
one comforting thing John said here about the Christian is that Satan cannot
touch him. The Greek word "hapto"
is translated here as "touch."
This word means "to fasten."
In other words, the evil one, Satan, cannot fasten himself to a true
believer. This tells me that a
real Christian cannot be possessed by either Satan or a demon.
Can a demon attempt to influence a Christian?
I believe he can, but a demon cannot fasten himself to a true
believer. He could, however,
fasten himself to a non-believer.
Verse
19 "We know that we are of God, and the
whole world is under the sway of the evil one." The
pronoun "we," in this verse, refers to John and his Christian
readers. Again, this statement
re-affirms that John's readers do belong to God.
If you have read this commentary from the beginning you will know
that John's readers were in need of some re-affirmation of their faith
because of the unsettling heresies that were disrupting the church. John
said that "the whole world is under the sway of the evil one."
I do not believe things have changed since John's day.
The world is still under the sway or influence of the devil.
The
Greek word "poneros" is translated here as "sway."
This word suggests that the devil is actively involved in all aspects
of the culture of the world. Jesus
confirmed this when He said that Satan is "the prince of this
world." Jesus called the
devil the prince of this world several times.
See John 12:31, 14:30, and 16:11.
Verse
20 "And we know that the Son of God has
come and has given us understanding so that we may know the true one. We
are in the true one — that is, in his Son Jesus Christ. He is the
true God and eternal life." John
said that the "Son of God has come and has given us
understanding." Jesus came
in the flesh decades prior to John writing this letter.
The Son of God who once came to this planet, came later also into the
lives of John's readers, and, at that point in time, began to give his
readers understanding. The
understanding that John was speaking of is in connection with his readers
knowing "the true one," who is Jesus.
John 14:6 states that Jesus is truth.
I understand that to mean that Jesus is the ultimate, divine,
universal, eternal truth of all there is.
This would be in direct contrast to the false Jesus that was promoted
by the false teachers. There is
something inherent in the true believer, because of the Holy Spirit residing
in him, that causes the believer to be convinced of Jesus being the one and
only universal truth. Those in
the world around us are simply clueless in this respect because they do not
have the Holy Spirit residing in them. John
specifically said, in closing this letter, that Jesus is the true God and
eternal life. This was to be a
re-affirmation to his readers that the false Jesus espoused by the heretics
was a figment of the heretics’ imagination.
Understanding that Jesus is God is basic to being a Christian.
If you do not embrace this truth, you believe in a different Jesus.
You believe in a Jesus that does not exist.
You believe in a Jesus who can never save you.
All
life, including life in eternity, is life because Jesus, who was present in
Genesis 1, is the author of life, whether human life, animal life, or plant
life.
Verse
21 "Little children, guard yourselves from idols." John
closed his letter with one simple admonition.
"Guard yourself from idols."
What idols John might have had in mind is speculative.
In context, I am not sure he was thinking of wood, stone, or gold
statues. He might well have been
thinking of idols of false theology. Replacing
the truth of the gospel with the heresies of the day might well have been
considered idol-worship by John. Review
There
are clearly some difficult issues to work through in this section of John's
letter. What the sin that leads
unto death is, and what the sin that does not lead to death is, have been
well debated. At the present moment, I am unable to suggest an understanding
to this that would satisfy most people.
We
do learn from this section of 1 John that we can expect to receive what we
ask God for, if our asking is in accordance with His will and His name.
John's concept of asking God for anything is that we should ask for
that which helps us do the will of God.
Asking for things that are based on our sinful lust is not what John
had in mind. John
concluded with the present truth that the devil is indeed the prince of this
present world, this present age, and he is so, except for the period of time
of the millennium, unto the moment he is thrown into the "But
the beast was taken prisoner, and along with it the false prophet, who had
performed the signs in its presence. He deceived those who accepted the mark
of the beast and those who worshiped its image with these signs. Both
of them were thrown alive into the lake of fire
that burns with sulfur."
Until
the day Satan is cast into the John's
last statement is the admonition to stay clear of idols.
I believe I can generalize the word "idols" by saying it
means anything or anyone that would take the place of Jesus in our lives.
This admonishment, although written to John's readers, is valid for
us today.
Present-Day
Implications The
character quality of a true believer seen in this section is that he is one
who asks his heavenly Father for those things that will help him do what God
has asked him to do. The
true believer is one who recognizes Satan to be the prince of this world and
prepares himself for battle. You
may never completely understand what John meant by sins that lead to death
and sins that do not lead to death, but, if you are the true believer that
John spoke of throughout this letter, then there is nothing for you to worry
about. Your sins have been
forgiven, and to the best of your Holy-Spirit-enhanced ability, you live a
righteous life. The
Character Qualities of a True Christian Throughout
John's first letter he continually re-affirmed the character qualities that
constituted the nature of a true Christian.
He did so because of any confusion his Christian readers might have
had due to the heresies afflicting the church in John's day.
Here are the character qualities that were pointed out in John's
first letter, and which we should see in our lives as Christians. A
true Christian is one who: -
walks in the light of God (1 John 1:7) -
has fellowship with the Christian brotherhood
(1 John 1:7) -
is cleansed from his sin by the blood of Jesus (1 John 1:7) -
is purified from unrighteousness (1 John 1:8) -
is forgiven of his sin (1 John 1:9) -
has Jesus deflect God's wrath from him when he sins (1 John 2:1 and 2) -
obeys Jesus (1 John 2:3) -
has God's love, that was demonstrated in the cross of Christ, completed, or
made real, in his life (1 John 2:5) -
does not cause a brother or sister in Christ to stumble in his or her faith
(1 John 2:10) -
knows God (1 John 2:13) -
overcomes Satan (1 John 2:13) -
has the word of God living in him (1 John 2:14) -
recognizes the spirit of antichrist (1 John 2:19) -
has the anointing of the Holy Spirit (1 John 2:20) -
knows the truth (1 John 2:20) -
has the anointing of the Spirit that helps him discern true and false
teaching (1 John 2:27) -
knows that some day he will be like Jesus (1 John 3:2) -
does not live a lifestyle of sin (1 John 3:9) -
knows that if his heart condemns him, God is greater than his heart and
knows all things (1 John 3:20) -
has confidence before God (1 John 3:21) -
receives from Jesus what he asks, when asked in the name and will of Jesus
(1 John 3:22) -
knows that Jesus, through His Holy Spirit, lives in him (1 John 3:24) -
knows that the Holy Spirit in him is greater than the spirit of antichrist
that is in the world (1 John 4:4) -
listens to what John has said in his letter (1 John 4:6) -
knows that Jesus is the Saviour of the world (1 John 4:14) -
acknowledges that Jesus is the Christ (1 John 4:15) -
knows he is born of God (1 John 5:1) -
loves the children of God (1 John 5:2) -
has eternal life living in him (1 John 5:13) That
is quite a long list. Does this
mean that all of these qualities must be perfectly working in your life to
be a real Christian? The answer
is, "no." We still
have our human nature that fights against these character qualities.
Nevertheless, the degree to which these character traits are found in
your life will be the degree to which you will know for sure that you are a
real Christian.
In
Acts 20, verse 13 and following, we read about the apostle Paul's final
farewell to the church elders at "I
know that after my departure savage wolves will come in among you, not
sparing the flock." Paul's
prediction came true. The savage
wolves that came in to destroy the flock of God were the false teachers, the
heretics, that John was forced to confront in his day.
Those false teachers were savage wolves.
They had no concern for the community of believers John was helping
to care for. These heretics were
only concerned with gaining more followers for themselves.
I
find it interesting that, some thirty or more years after Paul's prediction,
John had to deal with a prophecy that Paul spoke to the elders at Something
else that interests me is found in Revelation 2:1 through 7.
Depending on your end-time theology, Revelation, chapters 2 and 3 are
the chapters where we find Jesus speaking to seven specific communities of
believers. He was far from happy
with those communities. The
first community of believers was located in "Remember
then how far you have fallen; repent, and do the works you did at first.
Otherwise, I will come to you and remove your lampstand from its
place, unless you repent." According
to Revelation 1:20, the word "lampstand" is in reference to a
church, a Holy-Spirit-lit witness to the world.
These words of admonition must have been quite disturbing to John.
The very church he had dedicated his life to care for might disappear
because its members had lost their original love they had for Jesus.
I cannot begin to imagine how John must have felt when he heard Jesus
speak these words. Just
when John wrote his first letter in relation to when he penned the book of
Revelation is not known. The
majority opinion, and for good reason, is that the book of Revelation was
written last, perhaps a number of years after John wrote his first letter.
When
John wrote his first letter, he seemed to have felt good about his readers'
dedication and love for Jesus. Just
when they lost their love for Jesus is unknown.
Whenever that was, the admonition spoken by Jesus, in Revelation 2,
needed to be heeded by them. It
also needs to be heeded by us, today. We
are no different than the Christians in Although
it was not for a few centuries beyond the time John wrote this letter, the
city of In
closing, what we read, in 1 John, although specifically directed to
Christians in and around John
re-affirmed the faith of those to whom he wrote.
He wanted them to make sure they had repented, handed their lives
over to Jesus, and received the Holy Spirit into their lives, so they could
live in personal, supportive, and functional relationships in the local
expression of the Body of Christ.
I
like how John used the Greek present participle verb tense as it applied to
his Christian readers. A
participle is a half noun and half verb.
It is for this reason that a present Greek participle emphasizes the
action a person does based on who he is.
It is not just emphasizing the action as a normal verb would do.
As Christians, then, and this may sound strange, we should view
ourselves as Christian present participles.
It is what Paul was talking about, when, in 2 Corinthians 5:17, he
said that the Christian is "a new creation in Christ."
Who we once were, we are no longer.
Based on our new-creation status, we live the life of that new
creation that we are. We do the
things Christians do, not because we need to, but, because that is just who
we are.
I
hope and pray that what I have written in this commentary has been
beneficial for you. If I have
helped you in any way, whether big or small, to understand this portion of
our Bible, I will be both blessed and happy.
I
leave you with what the apostle Paul said to the Corinthian believers.
His instruction is relevant to all who call themselves Christians
today. 1 Corinthians 13:5 reads:
"Test
yourselves to see if you are in the faith.
Examine yourselves. Or do
you yourselves not recognize that Jesus Christ is in
you? — unless you fail the test."
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